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AN INTRODUCTION 


STUBYIOFR THEeHORY SGRIPTURES 


BY 


Rev. LRANG@ISstea GOS, S. 


VoL. I. General Introduction to the Study of the Holy 
Scriptures; Svo, Cloth 9.) =. | suNet $200, 


Vou. II. Special Introduction to the Study of the Old Tes-. 


tament: 
Part J. The Historical Books. 8vo, Cloth, 
Net $1 50. 
Part II. The Poetical, Didactic, and Prophetical 
Writings, 3.5 co Jt 0 came outs Peparariore, 


Vou. III, Special Introduction to the Study of the New Tes- 
taMent, ys 04, eaageee eh) as tt) 7 eparaian: 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


STUDY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


BY 


REV. ERANCIS Ey GIGOT. 96. S8uD. D., 


Professor of Sacred Scripture in St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodte, N. V., 
Author of “ Outlines of Jewish History,” ** Outlines of New 
Testament [fistory,” ** Biblical Lectures.” 5 


FOURTH AND REVISED EDITION, 


New York, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO: 


BENZIGER BROTHERS, 
Printers to the Holy Apostolic See. 


TRibil Obstat. 


J. B. HOGAN, S.S., D.D., 
Censor Deputatus, 


Tmprimatur : 
ey. MICHAEL AUGUSTINE, 
Archbishop of New York, 


NEw YORK, January 4, 1900. 


COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY BENZIGER BROTHERS. 


: | > > Sad of a een 


2 ea 
Engliaa, /7 Hv. 2S geoonare, / 35 


PREFACE. 


THE present work is the outcome of lectures on General 
Introduction, delivered during several years in St. John’s 
Boston Ecclesiastical Seminary, and is chiefly intended as a 
text-book for similar institutions. As such it deals with the 
questions which it behooves theological students most to be 
acquainted with before they enter on the scientific interpre- 
tation of the sacred text, and which fall under the three 
general heads of the Canon, Text and Versions, and Her- 
meneutics of the Holy Scriptures. In works of this kind it 
is customary to join to the study of these leading topics that 
of Biblical Inspiration, and in consequence, a concise treat- 
ment of the history, proofs, nature and extent of the inspi- 
ration of Holy Writ will be found in an appendix to the 
present volume. 

The method which the writer has pursued in the study of 
these important and difficult questions is the one which was 
inaugurated towards the end of the seventeenth century by 
the French Oratorian, Richard Simon, and which is almost 
universally adopted by leading contemporary scholars. It is 
the historico-critical method, called thus from the general 
purpose it has in view, Wiz. to give as genuine facts, or as 
valid inferences from facts, only those which, in the light of 
historical knowledge and sound criticism, are entitled to be 
considered as such. It is in virtue of this truly scientific 
method that each part of the volume is mainly devoted to 
a historical account of the facts or theories connected 


: 


107228 


6 PREFACE, 


with its respective topic, and will be found to embody an 
application of the generally acknowledged Canons of scrip- 
tural criticism. ‘Thus it is hoped that the student of Biblical 
Introduction will not only secure a certain amount of posi- 
tive information, but also acquire gradually personal habits 
of reflection and accuracy. 

Although the writer has felt obliged to be brief in his 
treatment of the various topics, yet he is not without confi- 
dence that at least every important question has received its 
fair share of attention and development. Moreover, he has 
been careful to supply the reader with constant references to 
the best books from which further information can easily be 
gathered. The fac-similes of MSS., inscriptions, etc., which 
are found at the end of the volume, will also render its use 
more profitable to the student. They have been chiefly taken 
from the valuable work of Dr. Frederic J. Kenyon, Cur 
Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts. 

Finally, it will be noticed that the present volume deals 
only with the questions appertaining to General Introduc- 
tion; but the writer hopes to be soon able to add as a 
sequel to the work now offered to the public, two volumes 
of Special Introduction to the Old and New Testaments. 


BALTIMORE, December 8, 1899. 





NO [EO oT res ON Ma ED TOs 


No important changes will be noticed between this second, 
and the first, editions of the present work. They consist 
merely in a few verbal modifications, and in placing the 
chapters referring to ‘‘ Biblical Inspiration ’’ under the general 
head of ‘‘ Part Fourth,’’ instead ot ‘‘ Appendix,’’ 


BALTIMORE, March, 1901. 


CONTENTS. 


_ PAGE 
PROPEGOMENAtsoreicere sie facies fa 6 AIG POON, Cia aT NACE C RR AED Hee ar I! 


PAR De BIR 
BIBLICAL CANONICS. 
CHAPTER 1. 
ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT... 25 


CHAPTE RSL: 


THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 4I 
SECTION I. FROM THE APOSTLES TO THE MIDDLE OF THE FIFTH 
SEN TUR VY cane stekes SP Mer ee, feat ate cab ple a tans acto ihalel 41 


CHAPTER III. 


THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 64 
SECTION II. FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE FIFTH CENTURY TO OUR 
LAE ies emit tile Cee aie ie Pele fh Bites Atkin eee so utes 64 


CHAPTER IV. 
HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.......-..ccee 88 


CHAPTHKSV, 


THE APOCRYPHAL OR UNCANONICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTA- 


CHAPTER VI. 


PRINCIPAL APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT........ 138 


7 


8 CONTENTS. 


PART SECOND. 


BIBLICAL TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 


CHAPTERGVIE 


PAGE 
NATURE AND DIVISIONS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM .....secceceroce 163 
GHAPIERSViIEL 
HistORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLDGERSTAMENT case c ln... oe eo 176 
SECTION I, DESCRIPTION OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT.... ... wee 176 
CHAPTER IX. 
HLUISTORY OR THE LEXTOPR/THE OLD su RStAM EN Iu. veo, «4+ sss reer 193 
SECTION II. TRANSMISSION OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT............ 193 
CHALLE RMX: 

HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT....... Le gy Reamer 221 
SECTION I, DESCRIPTION OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT............+. 221 
CHAPRIERAX1: 

PHisTORY OF THE. DEXT OF CTHE NEW , LESTAMEN TE oss os cute ieee 236 
SECTION II. TRANSMISSION OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT..... Habe es 236 
CHAPTER: Xt: 

ANCIENT GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT .......e00:: 261 
CHAPTERAXITE 
THE SYRIAC AND COPTIC VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE.........0000- 288 
CHAPTER XIV. 

THE ANCIENT LATIN ‘VERSIONS..<..'c.0..-.-+ « Peed a wee Sareea ° 307 


CHAPTER XV. 


DHE ENGUIsHAWERAIONS (han sec eet) Cedotlk. tk 2 ys. ose eee 340 


CONTENTS. Q 


PART THIRD. 


BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS. 
CHAPTER AX Vie 


PAGE 

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION... ........ 383 
CHAPTER XVII. 

HIsTory OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AMONG THE JEWS....... 406 


OTA Ur le xcver LT: 


Hisrory oF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN 
ROTO UP Mepis er «as pan oe MU MEE: Heya ORAL GS Sher hehe 8 427 
SECTION I. BEFORE THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION........... 427 


CHAPTER XIX. 


HIsToRY OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN 
CHURGHY io scasee il Ae ge a Te We, ME OS GPE. Sah aba. 448 
SECTION If. SINCE THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION........... 448 


PART FOURTH. 
BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 
GHAPTER XX: 
HIsTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION.......... 471 
CHAPTER: XXI. 
THE PRoors OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION... ...e0ceeceeeeeeeeseeves 517 
CHARTER: XX1). 


NATURE AND EXTENT OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION... ...eseeeecees 542 





FAC-SIMILES OF MANUSCRIPTS, INSCRIPTIONS, ETC.......00c080085 561 


ParES Xe TE en chicas aie ee oh 4 ole, actin are ade Seco A din bates ye erOOs 





GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY 
Oe OLY Sek LE RWRES. 





PROLEGOMENA. 


S11. Zhe L76le. 


1. Definition and Various Names. The Bible is 
the name commonly given to the collection of writings 
which the Church of God has recognized as inspired. It 
means ‘the Book” par excellence, and is derived from the 
Greek expression 7u\ fe6iia. (the Books), under which the 
early Christians designated their saéred( volume.’ In the 
Latin of the Middle Ages, the plural form “ Biblia” (gen. 
bibliorum) —a simple transcript of the Greek — came 
gradually to be treated as a sing. fem. noun “ Biblia” (gen. 
Bibliz), and it is as a name in the singular that at the present 
day it is found in all the languages of the Western Church. 

Among the other collective names which are frequently 
applied to the inspired writings we may mention: (1), Zhe 
Scripture (H ypaph, Lat. Scriptura)’; (2), the Scriptures 
(al ypagai, Scripturee) ;* (3), the Holy Scriptures (Aytat ypagat, 
Sacree Scriptura) ;* (4), the Old Testament (Ilahata dta07479), 
probably employed by St. Paul to designate the books 
written before the coming of Our Lord,* and the ew 


1 Cfr. St. Clement, ii ad Cor. xiv, 2. 

2 IT Tim: iit, 16, etc. 

3 TI Pet. iii, 16, etc. 

£ Rom. i, 2. 

5 II Cor. iii, 14. The word Testamentum (hence the English) is an old Latin ren- 


dering of the Hebrew Ana and of the Greek Aca@yxy, the meaning of which is 
“Covenant.” It is now extended to designate the written records of the Old and of the 


New Covenant. Only in the Epistle to the Hebrews (ix, 16, 17) is the word Ava6yxn 
used with the meaning of testamentary disposition. 


EE 


12 PROLEGOMENA. 


Testament (Kavi dca04xq4), now in common use when speak- 
ing of the sacred writings composed since the coming of 
Christ. 


/ 2. Number of the Sacred Books. The books 
‘solemnly declared “sacred and canonical’’ by the Council 
of Trent (Sess. iv, Decret. de canon. Script.) are as follows: 
“Of the Old Testament: the five books of Moses (to wit, 
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), Josue, 
Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two of Paralipomenon, 
the first book of Esdras and the second, which is entitled 
Nehemias, Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, the Davidical Psalter, 
consisting of a hundred and fifty Psalms; the Proverbs, 
Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesias- 
ticus, Isaias, Jeremias (that is, his Prophecies and Lamenta- 
tions} with Baruch; Ezechiel, Daniel ; the twelve minor proph- 
ets (to wit, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micheas, Nahum, 
Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggzeus, Zacharias, Malachias), two 
books of the Machabees, the first and the second. Of the 
New Testament: the four Gospels, according to Matthew, 
Mark, Luke and John; the Acts of the Apostles; fourteen 
epistles of Paul the Apostle, (one) to the Romans, two to 
the Corinthians, (one) to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to 
the Philippians, to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, 
two to Timothy, (one) to Titus, to Philemon, to the He- 
brews; two of Peter the Apostle, three of John the Apostle, 
one of the Apostle James, one of Jude the Apostle, and the 
Apocalypse of John the Apostle.” From this enumeration 
it follows that the inspired writings are seventy-two in num- 
ber, forty-five of which make.up the Old Testament, and 
twenty-seven the New Testament. 

Protestants agree with Catholics as to the number of the 
sacred books of the New Testament, but reject those books 
of the Old Testament which are not found in the Hebrew 


PROLEGOMENA. 13 


Text, so that, according to them, the Old Testament contains 
only thirty-nine books.’ Owing to their peculiar method of 
counting their sacred writings, the Jews spoke formerly of 
twenty-four books, and speak now of only twenty-two in the 
Hebrew Bible.” 


3. Principal Divisions and Arrangement of the 
Sacred Books. Next to the general division of the 
Christian Bible into the books of the Old Testament and 
those of the New Testament, the most important division of 
the sacred writings is that found in the Hebrew Text. The 
Jews divide their sacred books into three great  sec- 
tions called respectively “the Law” or Torah (77\n), “the 
Prophets” or Nebhi'im (O'"'23), and “the Writings ” or 
K*thubhim (8°33, in Greek dytbypaga). “The Law ” in- 
cludes the five books (Pentateuch) associated with the name 
of Moses. ‘The Prophets ” are subdivided into the eardier 
prophets (Josue, Judges, I, II Samuel, I, II Kings) and the 
later prophets (Isaias, Jeremias, Ezechiel and the twelve 
minor prophets). ‘The Writings ” or Hagiographa include 
(1) Poetical books (Psalms, Proverbs, Job) ; (2) the Five Me- 
ghilloth or Rolls (Canticle of Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, 
Ecclesiastes, Esther) ; (3) other books (Daniel, Esdras, Nehe- 
mias, Paralipomenon or Chronicles). Within the last two 
great sections, the order of the books sometimes varied, and 
other divisions of great antiquity are extant; but the one 
given is of special importance for the history of the Canon. 

A very different arrangement of the sacred books of the 
Old Testament is to be met with in the Vulgate, and also in 
the Septuagint from which it is borrowed. The opening books 


1 The books of Holy Writ not contained in the Hebrew Bible are: Tobias, Judith, 
Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the first and second books of the Machabees. 

2 Cfr. FRANTsS BuHL, Canon and Text of the Old Testament, pp. 19-23; and W. R, 
Smitu, The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, 2d edit., pp. 149-151. 


14 PROLEGOMENA. 


(Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) 
being Azstorica/, are followed immediately by all those which 
are considered as such, whether they relate the general his 
tory of Israel (Josue, Judges, Ruth, I-IV Kings, I, II Para- 
lipomenon, Esdras and Nehemias), or simply record partic- 
ular facts (Tobias, Judith, Esther). After the historical 
books,—without any special title indicative of the change,— 
come the joetical and didactic works, viz.: Job, Psalms, 
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom and 
Ecclesiasticus. Then follow, again without warning, the 
prophetical books, viz.: the books of the four great prophets 
(Isaias, Jeremias (with Baruch), Ezechiel and Daniel) and 
those of the twelve minor prophets. The series closes with 
the two books of the Machabees placed last in order, be- 
cause supposed to be the last written. So that, although 
there is no order formally indicated in the Vulgate, yet— 
with the sole exception of the books of the Machabees,—all 
the writings of the Old Testament which treat of the same 
general topic, be it history, doctrine or prophecy, are care- 
fully placed together. 

This arrangement of the inspired writings according to 
their general topic can easily be discovered in the list of the 
sacred books of the New Testament which has been given 
above: the Azstorical accounts of Our Lord’s life contained 
in the Gospels are immediately followed by the Azstorical 
book of the Acts of the Apostles; next come the didactic 
Epistles of St. Paul, St. James, St. Peter and St. John, and 
the list closes with the prophetical book of the Apocalypse. 
Such a topical arrangement has naturally led Christian com- 
mentators to divide the sacred writings of both Testaments 
into (1) Historical; (2) Didactic; and (3) Prophetical Books. } 


1 The minor divisions of the sacred text introduced for use in public services or for 
convenience of reference will be given later on. 


PROLEGOMENA. i 


4. Unity, Beauty and Influence of the Bible. 
The inspired writings which are included in these three great: 
divisions differ widely among themselves as regards style, 
authorship, date and method of composition. The historical 
books, for instance, are, for the most part, made up of old. 
materials utilized in various proportions by the writer who 
gave them their final form. The prophetical writings, on the 
contrary, are usually nothing else than a summary of the 
public addresses which the special messengers of God had 
already delivered to the people of Israel. The book of 
Psalms is a liturgical collection of sacred hymns, the style 
and contents of which vary considerably according to the 
century to which they belong, and differ not only from those 
of the prose compositions found in the Bible, but also from 
the other poetical productions comprised in the sacred 
volume. Again some of the inspired writers belonged tothe 
Jewish nobility, received a high degree of literary culture, or 
wrote during the golden age of Hebrew literature, whilst 
others, born and brought up among the humblest ranks of 
society, betray in their writings their lack of mastery of their 
mother tongue and of the art of composition. And yet, 
amidst all the differences, great and small, which may be 
noticed in the books of the Bible, an organic unity pervades 
and binds together all the integrant parts of the sacred 
volume. Thus, although the writers of the Old Testament 
lived in such different times and places, although they 
handled in so many different ways the written or oral tradi- 
tions of their race, they all clearly pursued the same religious 
end, and steadily contributed, each in his own manner and 
degree, towards the unfolding of a divine plan which cen- 
tred in the person and work of Christ. Such is also the 
purpose and burden of the New Testament writers. Despite 
the manifold and striking differences to be met with in their 
writings, their sole purpose is likewise the religious welfare 


16 PROLEGOMENA. 


of mankind, and the burden of their compositions is also no 
other than Christ, His person, words and examples. The 
same hidden spirit guided the pen of the sacred writers of 
either Testament, and made of the works of those who lived 
before Christ an active and steady preparation for the New 
Testament dispensation, and of the works of those who lived 
after Him, a real continuation and striking fulfilment of the 
old Covenant. 

This great variety and wonderful unity of the sacred 
writings are indeed two very important elements of their 
literary beauty. There are other features, however, which 
have justly secured for the Bible the highest place in the 
literatures of the world. “Its portrayal of character is real- 
istic; it is free in a remarkable degree from the vanity and 
egotism of the literary class; events are allowed to speak for 
themselves without verbal coloring; there is a dignity as 
well as a simplicity everywhere which does not descend to 
comedy or satire; there is an unparalleled naturalness in 
every form of composition adopted by the numerous writers : 
these and other features place the Bible on the highest pin- 
nacle of literary excellence.”’ “If we ask the greatest 
orators and writers of the last three centuries, what has led 
them to read and study a book seemingly so foreign to their 
purpose, they will tell us that they find in it more original 
literary beauty than anywhere else; that the Bible narra- 
tives, for instance, are more exquisitely simple and true to 
nature, the poetry of the Psalms more airy and graceful in 
touch; that Job is more solemn and sublime, the Prophets 
more vehement and irresistible in their denunciations, more 
tender in their appeals, the Gospels, finally, and the Epistles 
more startling, and, at the same time, more touching, more 
persuasive in their varying tones, than any other literary 


productions.” * 
1 A. Cave, Introduction to Theology and its Literature, 2d edit., p. 244, Sq. 
2 Very Rev. J. B. Hocan, S.S., Clerical Studies, p. 453. 


PROLEGOMENA. 17 


It is less, however, through its transcendent literary beauty, 
than through its priceless contents, that the Bible has exer- 
cised a deep and well-nigh universal influence upon the 
minds and hearts ofmen. The Hebrews of old justly gloried 
in their sacred books and drew from them those exalted 
doctrinal and ethical teachings which made their religious 
and moral life so far superior to those of the rest of the 
world. ‘Trained from childhood to respect and love the 
“ Oracles of God,” they instinctively turned to them for light 
and consolation in their trials, private or national.’ So 
was it also with the early Christians, who had little else to 
develop the faith which they had received from the mouth of 
the Apostles, to increase their fervor in the midst of the most 
alluring temptations and keep up their courage in presence 
of the most cruel persecutions. Century after century, the 
Fathers and Doctors of the Church, kings and lawgivers, 
councils and individual theologians, preachers, apologists, 
artists, saints, have in turn gone to the inspired writings and 
drawn from them light and inspiration either for themselves 
or for others. In our age in particular, the contents of the 
Bible have been examined closely by friend and enemy, 
utilized by the historian as well as by the theologian, read 
and dwelt upon by the recluse and by the promoter of social 
reform. 


§ 2. General Introduction to the Bible. 


1. Its Object. The title “Introduction to the Sacred 
Scriptures ”’ was used as early as the fifth century, when a 
Greek monk, named Adrian, wrote his ’Ercayoy7 ets tag Oelas 
ypapds. The object of his work wasa limited one: he simply 
aimed at instructing readers of the Bible how to understand 
rightly some of its difficult words and sentences. With 
Cassiodorus, a writer of the sixth century and the immediate 


1 Cfr. I Machab. xii, 9. 


18 PROLEGOMENA. 


successor of Adrian in his field of labor, the scope of the 
Introduction to the Bible was considerably widened, and in 
the course of centuries, it was gradually extended to all the 
topics which prepare the way for the interpretation of Scrip- 
ture. The tendency, however, in the present day,—espe- 
cially because the study of several of these topics has given 
rise to distinct sciences,—is rather to restrict the object of 
Biblical Introduction to a few questions, particularly .those 
which help directly to determine the value and meaning of 
the sacred writings. Among Catholics, in particular, the 
precise object of a, General Introduction to the Scriptures is 
usually limited to the preliminary questions which concern 
the Bible considered as a whole, to such questions for in- 
stance as the manner in which the inspired books came 
gradually to form the collection now known as the Bible, 
the manner in which these same books once collected were 
transmitted in the course of ages, etc. In consequence, we 
shall consider as belonging to a General Introduction only 
those topics which refer to the sacred writings viewed col- 
lectively, and we shall assign to a Sfecial Introduction all 
the preliminary questions about the contents, purpose, date, 
credibility, etc., of the separate books. 


2. Its Method of Study. The first to delineate and 
apply the proper method of study fora Biblical Introduction 
was the French Oratorian Richard Simon (1638-1712). 
Setting aside the dry and abstract method of those who had 
preceded him, he undertook to make a study at once histor- 
ical and critical of the principal topics which belong to 
Biblical Introduction, hence the name of “ Histoire Critique ”’ 
which he gave to his great works on the Text, Versions and 
principal Commentaries of Holy Writ." According to him, 


1 These works are: (1) Histoire Critique du Vieux Testament (Paris, 1678); (2) Histoire 
Critique du Texte du Nouveau Testament (Rotterdam, 1689): (3) Histoire Critique des 
principaux Cuommentateurs du Nouveau Testament (Rotterdam, 1693); (4) Histoire 
Critique des Versions du Nouveau Testament (Rotterdam, 1690). 


PROLEGOMENA. 1g 


the sacred books, no less than their various translations, are 
literary products which must bear the impress of the ideas 
and methods of composition prevalent at the time when they 
were written, so that to view and appreciate these works 
rightly one has only to study them carefully in themselves 
and in the light of the historical events under which they came 
into existence. Simon’s method was new, and as such dis- 
tasteful tomany. His positions, perhaps at times bold; often 
conflicted with the received views of his time, so that both 
his method and conclusions were at first strenuously opposed, 
and soon afterwards set aside. But time has proved the 
method of the French Oratorian the right one, and many of 
its conclusions correct. This is why scholars of our century 
who apply historical and critical methods of investigation to 
the various departments _ of human knowledge, willingly 
ascribe to Richard Simon the honor of having been the first 
to inaugurate the method according to which the questions 
introductory _ to the. interpretation of the Bible should be 
handled. They rightly call him the “Father of Modern 
Criticism.” Of course, whilst adopting this truly scientific 
method of investigation, the Christian student of the topics 
which belong to Biblical Introduction must always take into 
account the traditions and definitions of the Church. For 
these are both. facts and expressions of Christian belief 
which no one should neglect, because they have been, and 

must ever remain, powerful elements in the development of 
questions connected with Holy Writ. 


3. Principal Divisions of General Introduction. 
The leading topics to which the historico-critical method just 
described is to be applied form the principal divisions of 
Biblical Introduction. These main divisions may be stated 
as follows: (1) Biblical Canonics, or historical examination of 
the manner in which the inspired books which make up the 


20 PROLEGOMENA. 


Bible were gradually gathered up and recognized as the 
Word of God ; (2) Biblical Zextwal Criticism, or scientific in- 
vestigation of the way in which the sacred books have been 
transmitted to us either in their original language or in their 
principal translations ; (3) Biblical Hermeneutics, or the princi- 
ples and history of biblical interpretation. 

To these three great divisions some writers on Introduc- 
tion add another bearing on Biblical Inspiration; hence 
although the study of this difficult topic belongs perhaps 
more to the department of Dogmatic Theology than to that 
of Biblical Introduction, we shall deal with it in the Fourth 
Part of the present volume. 


4. Recent Literature. Recent Catholic works on 
General Introduction are comparatively numerous ; the best 
known among them are the following : 

Abbé Vicourovux, S.S., Manuel Biblique, vol. rst (Many 
editions have appeared since the first completed in 1880). 

UpaLpo Upa.pi, Introductio in S. Scripturam, vol. 1 
(Rome, 2d edit., 1882). . 

Abbé Trocuon, Introduction Générale (Paris, 1886). A 
Compendium of the same work was published in 1889. 

RUDOLPHUS CoRNELY, S.J., Historica et Critica Introductio 
in Libros Sacros, vol. 1 (Paris, 1885). A Compendium of the 
same work, also in Latin, was published in Paris in 1889. 

FRANZ KAULEN, Einleitung in die heilige Schrift A. und 
N. T. (Freiburg, 3d edit., 1890). A Compendium of it ap- 
peared in 1897. 

Abbé A. Lotsy, Histoire du Canon del’Ancien Testament 
(Paris, 1890); Histoire du Canon du Nouveau Testament 
(Paris, 1891); Histoire Critique du Texte et des Versions de 
la Bible (incomplete) (Paris, 1892, 1893). 

A. E. Breen, A General and Critical Introduction to thé 
Study of Holy Scripture (Rochester, N. Y., 1897). 


PROLEGOMENA. 21 


CuavvIn C., Lecons d’Introduction Générale aux Divines 
Kcritures (Paris, 1897). 

During the same length of time only few Protestant 
Works on General Introduction have been published ; they 
are as follows: 

CHarLes A. Briccs, Biblical Study (New York, 1887). 
A new and more complete edition of this work appeared in 
1899, under the title of : General Introduction to the Study 
of Holy Scripture. 

Henry M. Harman, Introduction to the Study of the Holy 
Scriptures (roth edit. New York, 1894). 

EpuarD Reuss, Allgemeine Einleitung zur Bibel, in Band 
1 of his general work entitled: Das Alte Testament, tiber- 
setzt, eingeleitet und erlautert (Brunswick, 1892). 

A. SCHLATTER, Einleitung in die Bibel (1890). 

The recent work entitled: A Primer of the Bible, by W. 
H. BENNETT (London, 1897), though useful on many points 
of Introduction, can hardly be considered as a General 
Introduction to the Bible. 





PART FIRST. 


BIBLICAL CANONICS. 


SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER I. 


ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE CANON OF THE OLD 


‘TESTAMENT. 


I. MEANING OF THE TERMS CANON, CANONICAL (PROTO- AND 
DEUTERO-) Books. 


I. 





‘Bh 
THE 
TRADITIONAL 
VIEW: gs 
E 
l 
{1 
III. ae 
RECENT 
THEORIES: 


. Its continuation 


- The Second 


. The Third Canon 


Beginning of the Canon with Moses (Deuter. xxxi, 
9-13; 24-26). 


Traces of collections of inspired 
books during this period. 

Probability that these collections 
were added to the Books of 
Moses. 


from Moses to 
the Babylonian 
Captivity : 


. Discussion as to its close at the time of Esdras. 


. Relation between the Alexandrian and the Palestin 


ian Canons of the Old Testament. 


. The three parts of the Hebrew Bible point to three 


stages in the formation of the Canon. 


Separate literary productions 


. The Preparation (songs, laws, history, proph- 


ecy). 
fora Canonin: | Distinct collections of these 
literary productions. 


Formally begun in the seventh 
century B.C. 

Its gradual development brought 
to a close by Esdras. 


The First Canon 


or “the Law”: 


Formation begun not earlier 
than 300 B.C. 

Completed by the end of the 
same century. 


Canon or “ ¢he 
Prophets” : 


This third Group of Sacred 
Writings mentioned in Pro- 
logue to Ecclesiasticus. 

Its formation falls probably be- 
tween 160 B.C, and II0 A.D. 


or “the Writ- 


—_ Or 


ings”: 
24 


PART FIRST: 


BIBLICAL CANONICS. 


CHAP DERLLE 


ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE CANON OF THE OLD 
TESTAMENT. 


§ 1. Meaning of the Terms Canon, Canonical (Proto- and 
Deutero-) Books. 


BerorE beginning to sketch the history of the Canon of 
Holy Writ, a few terms which will frequently occur in it re- 
quire a brief explanation. ‘The first of these terms is the 
word Canon itself. In its original Greek form (zavwy) it 
designates a straight rod, a pole, and taken metaphorically, a 
rule, in ethics, in grammar, in art, etc.’ Early Christian 
writers employed it also in the sense of a regulating prin- 
ciple when they spoke of “the Canon of the Truth,” ” “the 
Canon of the Faith.” * Later on, it came to designate— 
as it does now—the collection and the “st of books which 


1 For examples illustrating this metaphorical meaning, cfr. Westcott, Canon of the 
New Testament, Appendix A; and art. Canon, in ViGouroux, Dictionnaire de la 
Bible. 

2 CLEMENT of Alexandria, Stromata, Book vii, chap. xvi.; St. IrENa&us, Adv, Her- 
eses, Book i, chap. ix, § 4. 

3 PoLYCRATES, in Eusxrsius, Ecclesiastical History, Book v, chap. xxiv. 


25 


26 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


the Church receives as the inspired rule of faith and prac- 
tice.' 

The corresponding term, Canonical, occurs for the first time 
in the fifty-ninth decree of the Council of Laodicea (fourth 
century, A.D.), where we are told that “private (tdwrixods) 
psalms should not be read in the Church, nor uncanonized 
(dxavdnora) books, but only the canonical ones (7a xavovexa) 
of the New and Old Testaments.” The word Canonical 
seems therefore to have meant, from the first, books which 
have been canonized (xavovtfopeva), that is, ratified by the 
Church as belonging to the collection of the Holy Scriptures. 
This is still its principal meaning, although it is often 
applied to the books contained in the Canon, without direct 
reference to the decision of the Church concerning them. 

Among the canonical books, some are called Pro/o-canon- 
ical, that is belonging to the Canon from the first, whilst 
others bear the name of Dewfero-canonical, that is, admitted 
into it after the doubts entertained for some time about 
their sacred character had been finally removed. Protes- 
tants, it is true, consider the Deutero-canonical books of the 
Old ‘Testament * as uncanonical, and hence give them the 
name of Afocryphal, but the impartial and careful study of 
the manner in which the sacred books were gathered up and 
recognized as inspired clearly shows that the Catholic 
position is the only one tenable on historical grounds. 


§ 2. Zraditional View of the Origin and Growth of the 
Canon of the Old Testament. 


I. Beginning of the Canon with Moses (Deuter. 


1 St. AMPHILOCHIUS (ft about 394 A.D.), at the end of the “‘ lambi ad Seleucum,” on 
the books of the New Testament; St. Jerome, Prolog. Galeatus; St. AuGusTINE, De 
Civitate Dei, Book xviii, chap. xxxviii. 

2 These Deutero-canonical books, or parts of books, are not found in the Hebrew 
Bible. They are as follows: Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the two 
books of the Machabees, the fragments of the book of Esther (Esth. x, 4-xiv, 24), and 
those of the book of Daniel (Dan. iii, 24-90; xiii, 1-xiv, 42). 


ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE CANON. 27 


XXXI, 9-13; 24-26). It is to Moses, the great lawgiver of 
Israel, that century after century Jewish and Christian 
scholars have traced back the origin of the Canon of the Old 
Testament. ‘Their position is founded chiefly on two pas- 
sages of the book of Deuteronomy, the first of which (xxxi, g- 
13) tells usthat Moses having written “this law,” handed it 
to the priests and to all the ancients of Israel, bidding them 
to read it every seventh year, “in the hearing of all Israel 

. . that they and their children also hearing, may learn 
and fear Jehovah, and keep and fulfil all the words of. this 
law.’”’ In the second passage (xxxl, 24-26), we are told 
that “‘ Moses wrote this law in a volume (NBD->Y), which 


he delivered to the Levites, commanding them to put it 
by the side of the Ark of the Covenant of Jehovah, that 
it might be for a testimony against Israel.” 

The law spoken of in these two passages as written by 
Moses and given to the people of God as the authentic rule 
of their religious life, has ever been considered by Jewish 
and Christian traditions as identical with our Pentateuch. 
Whence it is inferred that the first instalment of the in- 
spired writings of the Old Testament goes back to the time 
of Moses. 


2. Continuation of the Canon from Moses to the 
Babylonian Captivity. A somewhat similar line of argu- 
ment is followed by the traditional school to render it prob- 
able that between Moses and the Babylonian captivity 
sacred books were collected and gradually joined to the 
canonical writings of the great lawgiver of Israel. Appeal 
is made, for instance, to the second book of Paralipomenon 
(xxix, 30) as implying the existence of a twofold collection 
of sacred hymns, viz., that of David and that of Asaph. We 
are also referred to the book of Proverbs (xxv, 1), where 
we read of the parables of Solomon, which the men of 


28 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, 


Ezechias copied out and added to those already collected. 
Finally, the prophet Daniel (ix, 2), speaks of ‘the books ” 
which he had consulted, and among which were the proph- 
ecies of Jeremias. 

But these and other such parts of Holy Writ were not 
simply preserved as independent collections ; they were also 
added gradually to the sacred books of Moses, and thus 
formed, even before the Babylonian exile, a real continua- 
tion of the primitive Canon of the Old Testament. The 
first proof of this position is drawn from the book of Josue 
(xxiv, 25, Sq.), where we read that “Josue set before the 
people commandments and judgments in Sichem, and wrote 
all these things in the wolume of the law of Jehovah,” 
whereby it is implied that the successor of Moses in com- 
mand added his own writings to that volume of the law 
which the book of Deuteronomy ascribes twice to the great 
lawgiver of Israel. Again, what we are told of the prophet 
Samuel laying before Jehovah “the law of the kingdom,” 
which he had written ‘in a book,” is considered as a trace 
of the custom of placing other writings by the side of those 
already kept in a sacred place (I Kings x, 25). Further- 
more, we are reminded by conservative scholars that the 
Hebrew Text of the historical books composed before the 
Babylonian captivity (Josue, Judges, Ruth, etc.), opens with 
the conjunction avd (1), a fact which seems to imply that 
each of these writings was intended, from the first, as a con- 
tinuation of the preceding sacred books and as an integrant 
part of the same series. Finally, since after the captivity 
Nehemias and Judas Machabeus made up a library of sacred 
books (II Machab. ii, 13; cfr. Josephus, Wars of the Jews, 
Book vii, chap. v, § 5, and Antiquities of the Jews, Book v, 
chap. i, § 7), it is probable that in this they were only 
following the example of their ancestors. 

Such are the principal arguments commonly set forth te 


ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE CANON. 29 


prove that the Canon continued to be enlarged between the 
time of Moses and the Babylonian captivity. They would 
indeed appear very plausible, were it not that they are met 
by a well-nigh insuperable difficulty in the fact that the 
Samaritans have never regarded as sacred any other books 
besides the Pentateuch, although their sect was not finally 
organized before the time of Nehemias (middle of the fifth 
century before Christ).’ 


3. Discussion as to the Close of the Canon of 
the Old Testament at the Time of Esdras. The 
same obscurity which surrounds the growth of the Canon of 
the Old Testament prevails in connection with its close. 
There is, indeed, a very widely spread opinion that the 
Canon of the Old Testament was brought to a close in the 
time of Nehemias and Esdras, but it is far from deserving 
the full credence which many prominent Catholic and Prot 
estant scholars gave it since the middle of the sixteenth cen- 
tury.” The principal grounds in favor of that opinion are: 

(1) The Zestimony of Josephus* (first century, a.p.), whe 
speaks of “twenty-two books only,” which “all Jews” 
consider as sacred, and which were composed before the reign 
of Artaxerxes (B.C. 465-425). ‘‘From Artaxerxes to our 
own age,’’ he adds, “the history has been written in detail ; 
but it is not esteemed worthy of the same credit, on ac- 
count of the exact succession of the prophets having been 
no longer maintained.” | 

(2) The Jourth Book of Esdras. In this apocryphal 
book, which was written towards the close of the first century 


1 Fora careful discussion of these arguments, see Abbé Lotsy, Histoire du Canon de 
l*Ancien Testament, p. 33, sqq.; cfr. also Green, W. H., Introduction to the Old Tes- 
tament, 1 part; the Canon, chaps. ii, vii. 

2 Among recent Catholic writers who maintain that position, we may mention Welte, 
Scholz, Ubaldi and Cornely. 

% Against Apion, Book i, § 8. 


30 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


A.D., Esdras, shortly before his death, is represented as en- 
dowed with divine inspiration and dictating during forty days 
to five skilled scribes. The result of their untiring labor is 
the re-writing of the twenty-four canonical books of the He- 
brew Bible, together with seventy other books which should 
‘be delivered only to such as be wise among the people.” ? 

(3) The Opznzons of such Fathers or Leclesiastical Writers 
as Tertullian,” Clement of Alexandria,’ St. Basil,’ Theodoret,° 
St. Chrysostom,’ St. Isidore of Seville,’ some of whem clearly 
depend on the fourth book of Esdras for their information 
respecting the close of the Canon of the Old Testament. 

(4) The Zestimony of the Talmud,* or uncanonical written 
law of the Jews, which in a famous passage describes the 
order of the books of the Hebrew Bible, and then says: 
«“ And who wrote them? Moses wrote his own book and 
the section concerning Balaam* and Job. Josue wrote his 
own book and eight verses of the law.'" Samuel wrote his 
own book and Judges and Ruth. David wrote the book of 
Psalms with the help of ten elders, viz.. Adam, Melchisedech, 
Abraham, Moses, Eman, Jeduthun, Asaph and the three sons 
of Core. Jeremias wrote his own book and the book of 
Kings and Lamentations. Ezechias and his college wrote 
Isaias, Proverbs, the Canticle of Canticles and Ecclesiastes. 
The men of the Great Synagogue "’ wrote Ezechiel, the 
twelve (minor prophets), Daniel and Esther. Esdras wrote 


1 Cfr. 1V Esdras, chap. xiv. 

2 De cultu fem., Book i, chap. iii. 

8 Stromata, Book i, chap. xii. 

4 Epist. ad Chilonem (Epist. xlii, § 5). 

5 Preface to Commentary on the Canticle of Canticles. 

6 Homily viii on Epistle to the Hebrews, (chap. v) § 4. 

7 Etymologies, Book vi, chap. iii (MiGNg, P. L., vol. 82). 

8 Section N®ziqin, treatise Baba Bathra, fol. 14 8. 

9 Numb. xxii, 2—xxv, 12. 

1 Deuter. xxxiv, 5-12. 

11 The Great Synagogue, according to Jewish tradition, was a permanent council as- 
sembled by Esdras and having authority in religious matters. 


ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE CANON. 31 


_his own book and the genealogies of the book of Chronicles 
as far as himself.” 

Despite the foregoing arguments in favor of the view that 
‘the Canon of the Old Testament was closed at the time of 
Esdras, it is the growing tendency of Catholic’ and Prot- 
estant scholars alike to reject a theory the main stay of which 
is the apocryphal fourth book of Esdras, since that book is 
manifestly bent on exaggerating the work of Esdras in con- 
nection with the sacred writings of the Old Testament. 
They also feel little bound by the testimony of Josephus, for 
at the very time when he wrote, the canonical character of 
Ezechiel, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, Esther, Proverbs and the Can- 
ticle of Canticles was still a matter of discussion among the 
Jews. But what leads them chiefly to maintain that the 
Canon of the Old Testament was not closed at the time of 
Nehemias and Esdras, is the difference in respect of their 
contents, which exists between the Hebrew Text and the 
Septuagint Version or oldest Greek translation of the Old 
Testament which the Greek-speaking Jews used freely in 
their religious services at and before the beginning of the 
Christian era. Whilst the Hebrew Bible comprises only 
Proto-canonical books supposed to have been all written be- 
fore the death of Esdras, the Septuagint Version contains 
over and above them, Deuéero-canonical books, some of which 
——as for instance, the books of the Machabees—were evident- 
ly composed much later than the middle of the fifth century 
before Christ. As these additional books are not collected 
in a final appendix to the Septuagint translation, but are dis- 
tributed among the other books of the Hebrew Bible as if of 
equal authority with them, it seems impossible to admit that 
_ the Canon of the Old Testament was finally brought to a 
close at the time of Nehemias and Esdras. 


1 Of such writers, for instance, as Vigouroux, Loisy, Trochon, etc. 


32 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, 


4. Relation between the Alexandrian and the Pal- 
estinian Canons of the Old Testament. The material 
difference just pointed out between the contents of the He- 
brew Bible and those of its oldest Greek translation, has 
given rise to the important distinction between the A/exan- 
adrian and the falestinian Canons of the Old Testament, thus 
called from the two places (Alexandria in Egypt, and Pales- 
tine) with which their respective origin is chiefly connected.’ 
That before Our Lord’s time the Jews of Alexandria—and 
indeed all the Greek-speaking Jews,—numbered among their 
sacred writings both proto- and deutero-canonical books, can 
hardly be doubted. For on the one hand, all the extant manu- 
scripts of the Septuagint Version comprise both classes of 
books without the least trace of difference of authority be- 
tween them, and on the other hand, as we shall see later, both 
deutero- and proto-canonical books stood on the same footing 
at the very beginning of the Church, that is at a time when 
no deviation from Jewish tradition can seriously be supposed. 

But, if such be the case, if it be true that, before our era, 
the Alexandrian Canon contained books which are not now 
found in the Hebrew Bible which is supposed to be identical 
with the Palestinian Canon, the question is forced upon us: 
How can we account for the present difference between the 
two Canons? A twofold solution is given to this import- 
ant question. A large number of scholars think that the 
Palestinian Canon never contained other books than those 
now found in the Hebrew Bible, so that the difference comes 
from the fact that, before our era, the Alexandrian Jews grad- 
ually added to them other books, viz., the deutero-canonical 
books. Other scholars contend, on the contrary, that at and 
before the time of Christ, both Palestinian and the Alexandrian 
Jews admitted one and the same Canon, viz., a Canon which 


1 The Alexandrian Canon is also called the Hellenistic Canon or Canon of the Hel- 
denists, because it was the one admitted by the Greek-speaking Jews. 


ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE CANON. 33 


included the deutero-canonical books, and that since then 
the Jews have removed them from their Canon. 

The advocates of the first solution appeal to the fact that 
the number of books joined to those of the Palestinian Canon 
varies considerably in the manuscripts of the Septuagint, 
and thus bespeaks the gradual additions made to the Canon 
by the Alexandrian Jews. Again, they call our attention to 
the use which Philo (an Alexandrian writer who lived about 
TO B.C.—50 A.D.) makes of the Sacred Scriptures: he 
quotes from and allegorizes upon, only the books of the Pal- 
estinian Canon, although he betrays acquaintance with the 
deutero-canonical writings. Finally, Josephus is indeed 
aware of the existence of the deutero-canonical books, since 
he frequently uses them, but when he wishes to give express- 
ly the number of the books which the Jews regard as sacred, 
he speaks only of the twenty-two books of the Hebrew Bible. 

The scholars who are favorable to the second solution, 
that is who think that at a certain period in the history of 
the Canon, the Palestinian collection comprised both proto- 
and deutero-canonical books adduce the following arguments. 
At the close of his Antiguzties of the Jews,’ a work which 
narrates the history between the Creation and the twelfth 
year of Nero, Josephus affirms that his only authorities have 
been the sacred writings (iepat BiGior), although in the course 
of his volume he has freely used the first book of the Macha- 
bees and transcribed literally several passages from the 
deutero-canonical fragments of the book of Esther.* Another 
and perhaps stronger argument is drawn from the manner 
in which the Talmudic writers look upon several deutero- 
canonical books, They speak of Baruch as a prophetical 
writing ; ascribe the book of Wisdom to Solomon, and quote 
repeatedly Ecclesiasticus with a formula used only to intro- 


1 Book xx, chap. xi, § 2. 
2 Book xii, chap. v, §1:—Book xiii, chap. vii; Book xi, chap. vi, § 6, sq. 


34 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


duce quotations from Holy Writ." Again the fact that 
all the deutero-canonical books of the Old Testament (ex- 
cept Wisdom and II Machabees) were written in Hebrew, 
seems to point to Palestine as the place of their composition, 
and hence also as the place from which the Alexandrian 
Jews obtained them, for Greek-speaking Jews were in con- 
stant communication with the holy city for things apper- 
taining to their religion. In point of fact the note appended to 
the book of Esther in the Septuagint (cfr. Vulgate : Esth. xi, 1), 
and the remark which we read in II Machabees (ii, 15), go 
far towards proving that the Jews of Alexandria were in- 
debted to those of Palestine for the deutero-canonical books 
which are not now found in the Hebrew Bible. It seems, 
however, that the first solution is better grounded on fact.’ 


§ 3. Recent Theories about the Origin and Growth of the 
poke Canon of the Old Testament. 


1. Meaning of the Threefold Division of the He- 
brew Bible. A close study of the traditional data concern- 
ing the origin and growth of the Canon of the Old Testament 
proves that they are both few and little reliable. It leads 
also to the conclusion that as long as inquiry into that im- 
portant question is based on such scanty and imperfect 
grounds, no real advance towards a more satisfactory solu- 
tion can be hoped for. It is not therefore surprising to find 
that in our age of independent investigation, biblical scholars 
have looked for new data which would enable them to frame 
theories more scientific than those hitherto in vogue. In 
point of fact, their untiring efforts have been crowned with 
considerable success, and we now proceed to state briefly 
their principal conclusions. 

1 Cfr. TrRocHon, Introduction, vol. i, p. 118, sq.; FRANTS Bunt, Canon and Text of the 


Old Test., p. 46 (Engl transl.); Vicouroux, Dictionnaire de la Bible, art. Canon, p. 142. 
2 Cfr. Lotsy, Histoire du Canon de |’Ancien Testament, pp. 61-67. 


ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE CANON. 35 


The first of these conclusions refers to the very ancient 
division of the Hebrew Bible into three parts, viz., “the Law, 
the Prophets, and the Hagiographa.” ‘To account for it, the 
ancient rabbis appealed to a threefold degree of inspiration 
granted to the sacred writers. According to these Jewish 
authorities, the first and highest degree of inspiration, which 
consisted in a direct intercourse with God, had been vouch- 
safed to Moses alone,’ and in consequence, “the Law” 
due to his pen justly formed the first division in the Hebrew 
Text. The lower degrees of divine inspiration, viz., the 
prophetical ecstasy, and what the rabbis call the jp n2, 


some sort of still inferior divine help, had been granted to 
the prophets and other holy writers respectively, and this is 
why their works had been placed after the writings of 
Moses and made to constitute the second and third divisions 
of the Hebrew Bible. This @ priort conception of the 
Jewish rabbis clearly influenced the Christian scholars who, 
down to the present day, think that this threefold division 
of the sacred books in the Hebrew is to be traced to the 
corresponding several degrees of personal dignity with which 
their authors were invested. It can hardly be doubted, 
however, that, as recent theories maintain, this threefold 
division of the Hebrew Bible points to a gradual develop- 
ment in the formation of the Canon of the Old Testament. 
As the sacred books which make up the Hebrew Text were 
only gradually composed, so also were they only gradually 
gathered and made to constitute the threéfold collection 
which is called “the Law, the Prophets, and the other 
Books ” in the Prologue to Ecclesiasticus, that is as early as 
mAOo8.C; 


2. The Preparation fora Canon. Whilst the trad 


1 Cfr. Numb. xii, 8, where we are told that Jehovah spoke “‘ from mouth to mouth * 
to Moses, “ and plainly, and not by riddles and figures.” 


36 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


tional view does not go back of Moses and the work ascribed . 
to him, in order to account for the beginning of the Canon, the 
recent theories refer us to several preparatory’ stages. They 
assume the existence of a large and varied Hebrew literature 
out of which our Pentateuch itself was gradually formed. 

The literature of Israel, we are told, like that of any other 
nation, began naturally with productions of a much more 
primitive character than the books of law and history found 
in our first canonical collection. Separate songs celebrat- 
ing the glorious deeds either of Jehovah or of Israel’s heroes, 
must have been the earliest fruit of the Hebrew literary 
genius, and in point of fact, some of these poetical pieces 
are simply embodied in the sacred writings (cfr. Exod. xv, 
1, sq.; Numb. xxi, 27-30), whilst others are explicitly men- 
tioned as taken from the distinct collections into which they 
had been gathered in the course of time (Numb. xxi, 14; 
cir:/also Jos. x,-13 3; Lt Kings 1 =r3y etc))2 6 In tikesnanner, 
recent investigations into the composition of the Pentateuch 
have shown that several collections of Israelite laws, such for 
instance as the “ Book of the Covenant ” (Exod. xx, 20—xxiii, 
33), the “ Law of Holiness ” (Levit. xvii—xxvi), etc., were 
made at different times and long before they came to be em- 
ployed by the sacred writer. Again, it is considered solidly 
established that at the root of the history contained in “the 
Law,” or first part of the Canon, there . lie old written 
traditions and previous historical compilations, the style and 
other peculiarities of which can still be discerned in our in- 
spired narrative. That collections of prophetical writings. 
were also made and transmitted before our present Penta- 
teuch had been recognized as canonical, is also affirmed by 
recent theories regarding the origin and growth of the 
Canon of the Old Testament, and the existence of such 
collections can hardly be denied except by scholars who 
look upon all these theories as utterly groundless. 


Ox1GIN AND GROWTH OF THE CANON. 37 


3. The First Canon or “the Law.” The practical 
means whereby one of the literary productions of Israel was 
finally considered as a canonical book among the Jews, is a 
matter of uncertainty both to the partisans of the old tradi- 
tional view’ and tothose of the recent theories. The latter 
scholars, however, point justly to two great events in Jewish 
history, with which a solemn promulgation and recognition 
of a book as sacred can well be connected. ‘The first of 
these events goes back to the year 621 B.c., when the 
Book of the Law, newly discovered in the course of repairs 
made to the Temple of Jerusalem, was received with the 
utmost respect by King Josias and his people, considered as 
a guide in regard to things appertaining to the worship of 
God, and made the basis of a thorough religious reforma- 
tion in Israel. Plainly the roll in question contained the 
words of Jehovah, and enjoyed in the eyes of all the full 
undisputed authority of a sacred book (IV Kings xxii, xxiii; 
II Paralip. xxxiv, xxxv). As this “ Book of the Law” was 
not the whole Pentateuch,’ but only a part of it, viz., the 
Deuteronomic Law,’ we have here a proof that the formal 
beginning of the Canon goes back to the seventh century B.c.* 
To this first instalment of the sacred collection, large addi- 
tions were gradually made down to the middle of the fifth 
century B.c., when in a ceremony resembling in many 
ways the one which had occurred under Josias, Esdras read 
publicly the complete law of Moses, and the people pledged 
themselves solemnly to live up to its requirements (II 
Esdras, viii, ix). . 

1 Cfr. Vicouroux, Manuel Biblique, vol. i, n. 26; and Lorsy, Histoire du Canon de 
l’Ancien Testament, p. 33. 

2 Cfr, Abbé Martin, Introduction 4 la Critique Générale de l’Ancien Testament, 
vol. ii, p. 230, sq. 

3 Cfr. CHas. Ropert, Réponse a “ the Encyclical and the English and American 


Catholics,” p. 52, sq.; Driver, Deuteronomy in the International Critical Commentary. 
€ Cfr. G. WILDEBOER, The Origin of the Canon of the O. T., p. ror, sq., Eng. Transl. ; 


oe eee 


38 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


That only the Pentateuch was thus made canonical in the 
time of Esdras is confirmed by the fact that the Samaritans, 
whose definitive organization as a separate community is to be 
placed a little later, do not recognize as Holy Writ any 
other books beside the Pentateuch.’ 


4. The Second Canon or ‘‘the Prophets.’’ When 
it is remembered that “the Prophets ” or second part of the 
Hebrew Bible includes historical works (Josue, Judges, Sam- 
uel, Kings), which form a natural continuation to the history of 
the Jewish people contained in the Pentateuch, it can easily 
be understood that all such books avowedly compiled from 
prophetical sources or breathing a prophetical spirit, would 
be sooner or later joined, together with the prophetical 
writings proper (Isaias, Jeremias, etc.), to the sacred books of 
Moses. The period within which the second collection of 
inspired writings was formed can be given only approxi- 
mately. Begun a little later than the final organization of 
the Samaritan community, which does not include any of the 
prophetical writings in its Canon, it was brought to a close 
some time before the Prologue to Ecclesiasticus, which speaks 
of “the Prophets ” as of a well-known and perfectly defined 
collection of sacred writings. Hence, recent theories infer 
that “the Prophets,” or second Canon, was not begun 
earlier than 300 B.c., and was completed by the end of the 
same century. 


5. The Third Canon or “the Writings.” Side 
by side with ‘‘ the Law and the Prophets,” the Prologue to 
Ecciesiasticus speaks of “ other books,” of “the rest of the 
books ” as “ delivered to the Jews from their fathers.” This 
reference to a third collection of sacred books clearly im- 
plies that when the Prologue was written (that is, about 130 


1 Cir. G. WILDEBOER, loc. cit., pp. roq~11t. 


ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE CANON. 39 


B.C.), the formation of the third Canon was at least begun 
for some time, but it does not give us any information about 
its extent in the middle of the second century B.c., or 
about the date at which it was brought to aclose. Probably 
most of ‘‘the Hagiographa ” were already in existence when 
the second Canon was completed, but began to be gathered 
up into a third Canon only about 160 B.c. This third collec- 
tion of sacred writings, which is designated in the New 
Testament under the name of “the Psalms ” (Luke xxiv, 
44), from its first and oldest part, the book of Psalms, did 
not apparently receive the final ratification of its present 
contents long before the middle of the second century A.D.’ 


1 For a detailed exposition of these new theories the student is referred to G. WILDE- 
BOER, the Origin of the Canon of the Old Testament; H. E. Ryve, Essay on the 
Canen of the Old Testament; S. Davipson, the Canon of the Bible; W. Sanpay, 
Inspiration, Lectures ii-v. 


SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER II. 


THE CANON OF THE OLD ‘TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN 
CHURCH. 


Section T, From the Apostles to the Middle of the Fifth Century. 


- 1. The Septuagint Version habitually quoted by New 


TuE CANON Testament writers. 


AS ADMITTED 4 2. The use of the Greek Scriptures allowed to the 


Neophytes. 
spe 3. Allusions to the Deutero-canonical books, found in 
APOSTLES : the New Testament. 
LE I. Special importance of the Testimony of the early 
‘Pen aay Ecclesiastical writers. 
TaREe 2. The Canon of the Western and Eastern Churches. 
CENtuntne ue: Principal difficulties stated and examined. 


Ih; 


I. Opposition to the 
Deutero - canonical 
books in Works of : 


Eastern Fathers. 
Western writers, especially 
St; Jerome. 


THE FOURTH 





CENTURY AND 


OF THE FIFTH of the Deutero- 


canonical books: 


| 
FIRST PART 
2. Arguments in favor ( Practical use made of them. 
Documents in their favor. 


CENTURY. 
40 


CHAPTER II. 


THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN 
CHURCH. 


Section I. FROM THE APOSTLES TO THE MIDDLE OF THE 
FIFTH CENTURY. 


§ 1. Zhe Canon as Admitted by the Apostles. 


1. The Septuagint Version Habitually Quoted 
by the New Testament Writers. With the begin- 
ning of Christianity opens a new and most important period 
in the history of the Canon of the Old Testament. The 
sacred books of Israel contained in a Bible which exists in 
two forms (the Hebrew and the Greek), cease to be the exclu- 
sive possession of the Jews, and are henceforth read with 
equal reverence in both the Jewish and the Christian assem- 
blies. In the Hebrew Text, the inspired writings are still 
divided into “the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings,” and 
the contents of this last division are yet undetermined.’ In 
the Greek Bible, or Septuagint, this threefold division of the 
sacred books has long given way to the arrangement which 
we now find in our own copies of the Septuagint, and of the 
Vulgate: they present the deutero-canonical writings of the 
Old Testament so mingled with the proto-canonical books as 
to assign to them the same authority. 

In presence of the Bible in these two forms the founders 
and first writers of the Church made a choice, and their 
choice, which was the outcome of both natural circumstances 


1 Cfr. WILDEBOER, pp. 72-75. 


AI 


42 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


and inward divine guidance, settled in a practical manner 
the important question: Which of the two Bibles should 
henceforth be regarded as the Bible of the Christian Church ? 
Sent to convert the Greek-speaking world, they naturally 
appealed to the existing Greek version of Holy Writ for 
oral and written proofs in favor of Christ’s messiahship and 
divinity. In point of fact, their quotations from the Greek 
Bible are so numerous (about 300 out of 350 quotations of 
the Old Testament in the New), and of such a nature, that 
some writers have seen in them a proof that the Apostles 
had formally ratified all its contents. ‘The inference, how- 
ever, is not probable. On the one hand, this distinct ap- 
proval of the entire Greek Bible has left no trace in history, 
and, on the other hand, the variety of opinions which soon 
arose regarding the extent of the Canon, tends to show that 
such an approval was never given. 


2. The Use of the Greek Scriptures Allowed to 
the Neophytes. From the fact that the Apostles did not 
formulate an express decision in favor of the Septuagint 
Version and all its contents, Protestant writers generally draw 
an argument against the canonical character of the books 
which the Septuagint contained over and above those of the 
Hebrew Bible. ‘They affirm that the Apostles considered as 
inspired only the books of the Palestinian Canon, and that 
this is why they refrained from a positive approval of the 
Greek Bible and its fuller Canon. This line of argument is 
inadmissible. For, if the Apostles looked upon the deutero- 
canonical writings as non-inspired, it was their plain duty 
not only to abstain from giving them full approval, but also 
to exclude them from the Bible used by the early Christians. 
This exclusion was all the more imperatively required, be- 
cause the intermingling of proto- and deutero-canonical books 
in the Septuagint translation was such as to imply their real 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE.CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 43 


equality. But far from excluding them from the Greek 
Scriptures, the Apostles allowed to the early Christian com- 
munities the use of the Alexandrian Canon, without any dis- 
tinction between the books it contained. It is plain, therefore, 
that if the attitude of the Apostles regarding the contents of 
the Septuagint Version proves anything, it proves that, in 
their eyes, all the books of the Greek Bible were really 
divine. 


3. Allusions to the Deutero-canonical Books, 
found in the New Testament. Our position derives 
a powerful confirmation from the fact that the writers of the 
New Testament show a close acquaintance with the deutero- 
canonical books. ‘They never quote them explicitly, it is 
true, but time and again they borrow expressions and ideas 
from them.’ Again, “the examples of religious courage 
and constancy extolled by the author of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews (xi, 34, sq.), are undoubtedly copied in part from 
the history of the Machabees (II Mach. vi, 18-vii, 42); 
and just as he presents these latter to the admiration of the 
faithful as having claims equal to those of the heroes of 
sacred antiquity, so the documents relating the life of both 
must have had an equal value in the eyes of the writer quot- 
“~~ From these allusions to the deutero-canonical 
books, we naturally infer that when they used and put on 
the same level all the books found in the Alexandrian Canon, 
the neophytes simply followed the example set before them 
by their teachers. 

It is true, as stated above, that the New Testament writers 
do not quote expressly the deutero-canonical books, but this 
may be accounted for otherwise than by their desire of mark- 


ing them. 


1 Cfr. for instance, James i, 19, with Ecclesiasticus v, 13, and iv, 29; I Peter 1, 6-7, 
with Wisdom iii, 5-6; Heb. i, 3, with Wisdom vii, 26; etc. 
2 Reuss, Hist. of the Canon of Holy Scripture, p. 10, sq., Engl. Transl. 


44 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


ing them off as uncanonical, for, in point of fact, they have 
neither quoted nor even alluded to several frofo-canonical 
books whose sacred character they of course never ques- 
tioned.’ 


§ 2. The First Three Centuries. 


1. Special Importance of the Testimony of the 
Early Ecclesiastical Writers. In the history of the 
Canon of the Old Testament in the Christian Church, es- 
pecial importance attaches naturally to the testimony of the 
early ecclesiastical writers. As they stood nearest to the 
apostolic times, they had the best opportunity to learn which 
Canon had received the practical approval of the Apostles, 
which Canon they should themselves use and transmit to 
their successors. Whatever Bible they quoted from, what- 
ever books they regarded as inspired, the same were bound 
to become and remain the Bible and the sacred books of all 
future generations. ‘Their words form the first links in that 
long chain of testimonies in favor of the deutero-canonical 
writings, which connects the present with the past, and 
which depends ultimately for its worth on the strength of its 
first links. In point of fact, most recent biblical scholars 
appeal to the testimony of the earliest ecclesiastical writers, 
fully persuaded that these first disciples of the Apostles 
simply continue and give expression to the mind of their 
teachers in regard to the Canon of Holy Writ. 


2. The Canon of the Western and Eastern 
Churches. One of the best ascertained facts in the his- 
tory of the Canon of the Old Testament during the first 
three centuries is that both the Western and Eastern 
Churches used a Bible whose contents were more extensive 


1 These books are: Abdias, Nahum, Canticle of Canticles, Ecclesiastes, Esther, 
Esdras, and Nehemias. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 45 


than those of the Hebrew Text. This Bible was either the 
Septuagint Version itself, naturally employed by the early 
Fathers who wrote in Greek, or the old Latin Version, which 
was made directly from the Septuagint, and contained, like 
the Greek Bible, both the proto- and the deutero canonical 
books of the Old Testament. 

Another fact, no less certain than the one just referred to, 
is that the Greek and Latin Fathers of this period quote 
both sets of writings, without the least suspicion that the 
Apostles ever disapproved of any of them. They use both 
for the purpose of edification and instruction, and ascribe 
to them equal authority. This is the case with St. CLEMENT 
of Rome (f I00 a.D.), who was unquestionably the most 
prominent figure in the sub-Apostolic age, and who, in his 
epistle to the Corinthians, makes use of the books of Wisdom 
and Ecclesiasticus, and summarizes the book of Judith and 
that of Esther, with its deutero-canonical additions.’ In 
like manner, the book of Tobias is known to the author of 
the very ancient, homily usually referred to as the second 
epistle of St. Clement,’ whilst Ecclesiasticus and the second 
book of the Machabees are made use of in ‘“ The Shepherd,” 
a work commonly ascribed to Hermas.* The writings of 
St. IREN@uS (f 202 a.p.), the illustrious Bishop of Lyons, 
afford us a testimony weightier still, because of his personal 
relations with the churches of Asia and with that of Rome. 
He makes use of the book of Wisdom, quotes Baruch, under 
the name of “Jeremias the Prophet,” and the deutero- 
canonical parts of Daniel as “ Daniel the Prophet.” * To 


1 Cfr. I Cor. iii, with Wisdom ii, 24; xxvii with Wisdom xi, 22; xii, 12; also I Cor. 
ly, with Judith, passim, and Esther xiv. 

2 Cfr. II Cor. xvi, with Tobias xii, 9. 

3 Cfr. e. g.: 1st Commandment and sth Similitude, chap. v, with Ecclesiasticus 
XVili, 1; also rst Comm. with II Mach. vii, 28. 

4 Cfr. Against Heresies, Book V, chap. xxxv, § 1, Book IV, chap. v, § 2; Book IV, 
chap. viii, § 3. 


46 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, 


these testimonies might be added those of other Western 
ecclesiastical writers, such as St. Hrprpotytus of Rome 
(f 220 A.D.), TERTULLIAN (f 220 A.D.), St. CYPRIAN (fT 258 
A.D.), but as it is granted on all hands that these witnesses 
quote the deutero-canonical writings without scruple, speak of 
them as “ Holy Scripture,” and cite passages with the solemn 
introductory formulas, “as it is written,” “the Holy Spirit 
teaches,” etc., itis not necessary to insist on their testimony.’ 

If from the Western we turn to the Eastern Churches, we 
find no less numerous, no less explicit, statements in favor 
of the sacred character of the deutero-canonical books. 
Thus, the writer of the epistle usually ascribed to St. 
BARNABAS quotes Ecclesiasticus iv, 36.7 St. PoLycarp 
(f 160) cites Tobias iv, 11;* and St. ATHENAGORAS in his 
“ Apology,” presented to the emperor Marcus Aurelius 
about 177 A.D., quotes Baruch ili, 36, as the saying of a 
“prophet.” * CLEMENT of Alexandria (f 220 A.D.) uses the 
deutero- like thé proto-canonical books for explanation and 
proof indiscriminately ; he quotes Tobias as ‘ Scripture,” 
Baruch as “ divine Scripture,” Wisdom as written by Solomon, 
and consequently “ divine,” etc.” In this, CLEMENT is faith- 
fully followed by his most illustrious disciple, ORIGEN (fF 254 
A.D.), who quotes as Holy Writ all the deutero-canonical 
writings, claims for the Church the right to admit into her 
Canon books which are rejected by the Jews, and expressly de- 
fends the reception among Christians of the books of Tobias 
and Judith, and of the additions to the books of Daniel and 
Esther. Dionysius of Alexandria, in the extant fragments 


1Cfr Breen, Introd. to Holy Scripture, p. 68, sq.; Sam. Davipson, The Canon of 
the Bible, 3d edit., pp. 101, 103, sq. 

? Epistle, chap. xix. 

3 Epistle to the Philippians, chap. x. 
. * Apology. chap. ix. 

5Cfry Padag) Bellchapyssestromata,epi Ll chy acca L Vee Chr On hel le chads bg 
II, ch. 7, etc. : 

6 Cfr. Comm. in Joann.; Against Celsus, Book III, chap. 72, etc., etc.; also Epist. to 
Africanus, §§ 4, 5. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 47 


of his works, cites Tobias, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom and 
Baruch.’ Finally, St. MeTHopius (f 311 A.D.), the Bishop 
of Tyre and adversary of Origen, employs the deutero. 
canonical like the other writings of the Old Testament.’ 

In presence of this unanimous consent of Eastern and 
Western ecclesiastical writers, it is easy to understand how 
just are the following words of the late Protestant professor, 
Reuss: “ The Christian theologians of this period knew the 
Old Testament only in its Greek form (in the Septuagint), 
and consequently they made no distinction between what we 
call canonical books (Hebrew) and apocryphal books 
(Greek). They quote both with the same confidence, with 
the same formulas of honor, and attribute to them an equal 
authority based on an equal inspiration.” ° 


3. Principal Difficulties Stated and Examined. To 
offset this unanimous consent of the East and the West, 
recent Protestant writers have brought forward various 
arguments which we must now state and examine. We are 
told, for instance, by Westcotr* that “the quotations from 
the Old Testament in Justin . . . . confirm exclusively the 
books of the Hebrew Bible. There is no quotation, I be- 
lieve (in his works), of the Apocrypha of the Old Testament, 
though Wisdom, at least, would have fallen in with much of 
Justin’s reasoning.” 

To this it may be answered, (1) that the holy Doctor had 
hardly any natural occasion to quote the deutero-canonical 
books in his Afologies to the Roman emperor; (2) that in 
‘ point of fact, as admitted by the Protestant writer KEI,’ 
“he used the Alexandrian additions to Daniel in his first 


1On Nature against the Epicureans, fragm. 3, 5; com¢ra Paulum Samos., qu. 6, 9, Io. 
2The Banquet of the Ten Virgins, 1st discourse, chap. ili. 

3 History of the Canon of Holy Scripture, p. 93, Eng Transl. 

The Bible in the Church, p. 106, new edit., 1885 

5 Introduction to the Old Test., vol. ii, p. 351, Eng. Transl. 


48 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, 


Apology, chap. 46;” (3) that in his Dialogue with a Jew 
named ‘Trypho, St. Justin mentions several times his 
purpose to quote only those Scriptures which are admitted 
by the Jews.’ 

The testimony of another apologetic writer, St. MeELiTo 
(fl.170 (?) A.D.), Bishop of Sardis, is also appealed to against 
the deutero-canonical writings. In his letter, which serves 
as a preface to his collection of extracts from the Old 
Testament,” the holy bishop gives a list of the sacred books 
of which he had learned the exact number and order when 
in the East, that is, in Palestine. This list includes all the 
books of the Hebrew Canon (except Esther), follows the 
same general order as the Greek Bible in their enumeration, 
and contains no deutero-canonical writing. From these facts 
two most important inferences, it is claimed, should be 
drawn: (1) ‘that the judgment of the East, or in other words 
of Palestine, was that which was held to be decisive on the . 
contents of the Old Testament;” (2) that ‘“ Melito’s list 
appears to be a catalogue of the books in the Palestinian 
Septuagint, the Greek Bible which was used by Our Lord 
and the Apostles.’’ 

Quite a different construction, however, can and should 
be put on the words of the Bishop of Sardis. His collection 
of extracts from the Old Testament, having a polemical pur- 
pose against the Jews, was intended from the first to contain 
simply passages from “the Law and the Prophets,” * and 
was naturally carried out only when he had ascertained to 
his full satisfaction “the books of the Old Testament ” 
which the best informed Jews, viz., those of Palestine, re- 
garded as inspired. In his enumeration of the writings 


‘ Dialogue with Trypho. chaps. 71, 120, 137. 

2 Eusesics. Ecclesiasticat History, Book 1V, chap. xxvi. 

3 Westcott. The Bible in the Church, p. 124; cfr.also H. E. Ryre, The Canon of 
the Old Test, p. 208 

4Cfr Melito's letter in Eusebius, loc. cit. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 49 


admitted as sacred by the Jews, he does not follow “a 
Palestinian Septuagint,” of which there is no trace in all the 
literature which refers to the Canon of the Old Testament, 
but simply adopts the order of books with which he himself 
and his correspondent, Onesimus, a Christian of Asia 
Minor, were familiar in the current copies of the Septuagint 
Version.’ Finally, if he omitted purposely to mention the 
book of Esther, it was not because he personally rejected 
its sacred character on the authority of the Jews of Palestine, 
but because he did not find it admitted by the rabbis whom 
he consulted.” 

It should be said, however, that some Catholic writers— 
among whom Vigouroux and Loisy—hold that St. Melito 
accepted the Hebrew Canon on the authority of the Jews, 
and that, in doing so, he departed from the right tradition of 
the Christian churches. 

This last remark applies in a special manner to the con- 
duct of Origen. This illustrious Doctor gives practically 
the Hebrew Canon in the sole passage of his writings which 
contains a catalogue of the Scriptures of the Old Testament,? 
and further seems to make it his own in at least one passage 
of his Commentaries.* It is clearly impossible to read care- 
fully these two passages and to compare them with the views 
of Origen stated above, without feeling that here he is 
simply deviating from what had been, and was still in his 
time, the public and positive belief of the Church of 
Alexandria. That Church, like all those of the first three 
centuries, used the Greek Bible, and put exactly on the 
same level all the books it contained. 

1 This is precisely the case with Origen when he enumerates the books of the Hebrew 
Canon; cfr. Eusepius, Eccles. Hist., Book VI, chap. xxv. 

2Cfr. H. E. Ry ez, loc. cit., p. 204 sq.; WILDEBOER, The Origin of the Canon of the 
OUI. p176,.sq. 

3 Cfr. Eusesius, Eccles. Hist., Book VI, chap. 25. 


4 Cfr. quotations from Origen in St. Jerome, on Daniel, chaps. xiii, xiv. (Patr. Lat. 
vol. xxv). 


590 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


The last difficulty to be mentioned here is drawn from 
the following fact: Side by side with the deutero-canonical 
books of the Old Testament, several ecclesiastical writers of 
the first three centuries use freely and quote as Holy Writ 
such apocryphal productions as the book of Enoch, the 
third and fourth books of Esdras, etc. Does not this 
seem to imply that in the early Church both the deutero- 
canonical and the apocryphal books enjoyed the same 
authority and were placed indiscriminately in the same 
collection of sacred books? 

Our answer is briefly this: History proves indeed that 
for some time several early writers of the Church used freely 
a few apocryphal books, but it proves also that at no time any 
of these apocryphal writings was received by all the Churches 
of the East and the West, and read in public services to- 
gether with the canonical books." This is the reason for 
which these apocryphal productions soon fell into discredit, 
whilst the deutero-canonical writings continued in use side 
by side with the books of the Hebrew Bible. 


§ 3. Zhe Fourth Century and First Part of the Fifth Century. 


I. Opposition to the Deutero-canonical Books. 
Strange to say, the well-nigh perfect unanimity of the ecclesias- 
tical writers of the first three centuries in favor of the deutero- 
canonical books was not kept up during the fourth century 
of our era. In the East and in the West, several illustrious 
Doctors of the Church entertained serious doubts concerning 
the authority of the writings which were not found in the 
Hebrew Bible. 

This is the case with St. ATHaNasius, who, in his 39th 


1 For detailed information about this point, see Lorsy, Hist du Canon de I’A. Test., 
pp. 79-83. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 51 


festal Epistle,’ sets forth “the books included in the Canon 
and handed down, and accredited as divine,’ and excludes 
from their number all the deutero-canonical writings of the 
Old Testament, except Baruch. He further adds that beside 
these divine books, there are others “‘ not indeed included in 
the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those 
just joining us,” to wit, “The Wisdom of Solomon, the Wis- 
dom of Sirach (i. e. Ecclesiasticus), Esther, Judith, Tobias, 
and that which is called the Doctrine of the Apostles, and 
the Pastor or Shepherd.” Finally, he rejects absolutely all 
‘the apocryphal writings, as an invention of heretics.” 

Like-minded with St. Athanasius, and perhaps repeating 
his words, St. GREGoRY NAZIANZEN (f 389) enumerates only 
the proto-canonical books (except Esther) and then adds: “ If 
there be any beside these books, they are not genuine (0vz év 

yrnolos),” ‘. 

St. Cyrit of Jerusalem ($386) is no less explicit against 
the deutero-canonical books, although he distinctly claims for 
the Christian Church the right to settle the Canon of the 
Sacred Scriptures. ‘Learn diligently,” he says, “and from 
the Church, which are the books of the Old Testament and 
which of the New, and read not any of the apocryphal... 
Read the divine Scriptures, those twenty-two books which were 
translated by the seventy-two interpreters . . . Those only 
study and meditate which we read with confidence even in 
Church. Far wiser than thou and pious were the Apostles and 
the ancient bishops, the rulers of the Church who have handed 
down these: thou therefore, as a child of the Church, trench 
not on their established laws.” Then he enumerates the twenty- 
two books of the Old Testament (that is, the books of the He- 
brew Canon, to which he adds Baruch) and those of the New, 

1A Festal Epistle was a pastoral letter put forth by the Archbishops of Alexandria ta 
make known each year the exact date of the Paschal festival. The 39th Epistle of St. 


Athanasius gues back most likely to 367 a.p. We have only fragments of it. 
3 Cfr. Loisy, Canon de |’Ancien Testament, p. 104. 


52 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


and concludes with these significant words: ‘“ But all the rest, 
let them be put aside in the second rank; and what is not 
read in the churches, that read not thyself according as thou 
hast heard.” * 

St. EprPHANIUS (Tf 403), Bishop of Constantia (Salamis) in 
Cyprus, is less explicit than either St. Athanasius or St. 
Cyril in his opposition to the deutero-canonical books, and 
this is why his exact view regarding them is still a matter of 
discussion among Catholic scholars. It seems difficult, how- 
ever, not to admit with Hanneberg,’ that he numbers them 
all (except Wisdom and KEcclesiasticus which he holds in 
special esteem) among the apocryphal writings of the Old 
Testament. * | . 

As opposed to the full authority of the deutero-canonical 
books in the East, we may also mention the Synopsis Atha- 
nastana, the Canon of St. Basi, of Czsarea, in Cappadocia 
(tT 379 4.D.), the Iambic metres ascribed. to St. AMPHILC- 
CHIUS of Iconium(f 395), the 85th Canon of the Apostles, and 
the 6oth decree of the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 363).° 

Such are the Eastern documents which, in a more or less 
explicit manner, assign to the deutero-canonical books a rank 
inferior to those of the Hebrew Bible, and which are still de- 
scribed by most Protestant writers as the witnesses of history 
against the Catholic Canon. It is certain, however, that they 
simply express the theoretical views of their authors, for, in 
practice, those same authors use freely both the proto- and 
the deutero-canonical writings of the Old Testament, and 
apply to both exactly the same language. St. Athanasius, 
for instance, ‘introduces Judith (viii, 16) with ‘the Scripture 


1 Cfr. Catechetical Lectures, Lect. iv., $$ 33, 35, 36. 

2 Histoire de la Révélation Biblique, vol. ii, p. 387. Cfr. also TrRocuon, Introduction, 
vol. i, p. 138; anda significant passage in CAsstoporus (t 570); (Miane, P. L. vol. Ixx, 
cols. 1125, 1126.) 

3 Against Heresies, 8th Heresy, chap. vi. 

* For the respective authority of these sources of information, see Loisy, Canon de 
VA. T., and Trocuon, loc. cit. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 53 


said,’ and Baruch (iii, 12) 1s cited as Scripture. Wisdom 
(vi, 26) has the epithet Scripture applied to it. Sirach (i.e. 
Ecclesiasticus) xv, g is introduced as ‘ what is said by the 
Holy Spirit.’ Baruch (iv, 20, 22) and Daniel (xiii, 42) are 
referred to in the same way as Isaias. Tobias (ii, 7) has ‘it 
is written’ prefixed to it.”’ 

St. Gregory Nazianzen quotes Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus 
several times in his theological works,” and St. Basil cites 
Judith Gx, 4).2 St. Cyril of Jerusalem who took part in the 
Council of Laodicea “refers to Paruch (ill, 36-38) as che 
prophet ; and in adducing the testimonies of the prophets for 
the existence of the Holy Spirit, the last he gives is Daniel 
Kili e4 tas etoitachs (Meclesiasticus ) ill, 21,222) 1s. cited); 
Wisdom is quoted as Solomon’s (xiil, 5); the song of the 
three children is used (verse 55) with verses 27, 29; and 
Daniel (xili, 22, 45) is quoted.” * 

The practice of St. Epiphanius is likewise clear. He in- 
troduces Sirach (vii, 1) with “ the Scripture testifies ;’’ Wis- 
dom (i, 4) is quoted as Solomon’s; Baruch (iii, 36) is intro- 
duced with “as the Scripture says,” and Daniel (xiii, 42) is 
quoted with “as it is written.” ° 

It is plain, therefore, that however great may have been 
the difference admitted by these Eastern writers between the 
books of the Hebrew Bible and those found only in the 
Greek Bible, it did not influence much their practice. Their 

Bible was the Bible in universal use in the churches of thei 
time and country. It was the Greek Bible, which had been 
transmitted to them by their predecessors, and which still 
contained both classes of books without the least distinction 
as to their respective authority. They were perfectly famil- 


1S. Davipson, the Canon of the Bible, 3d edit., p. 177, sq. 
4 Lotsy, loc. cit., p. 105. 

3 Lorsy, ibid. 

# Davipson, loc. cit., p. 176. 

5 Dayvipson, loc. cit., p. 181. 


54 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


iar with all its parts, and when they wished to edify the peo- 
ple or set forth proofs of revealed doctrine, they instinctively 
set aside their theoretical views regarding the Canon, and 
used indiscriminately all the books which were found in 
what they knew to be the Bible of the Church. 

It was only natural that these speculative views so prevalent 
in the East should exercise some influence upon the mind of 
Western writers. In point of fact, three of these are pointed 
out as placing more or less explicitly the deutero-canonical 
books in a rank inferior to those of the Hebrew Canon. The 
first in date is St. Hrtary of Poitiers ({ 368). In his com- 
mentary on the Psalms, which St. Jerome says was largely 
borrowed from Origen, the holy bishop reproduces Origen’s 
catalogue of the Old Testament, that is, his list of the twenty- 
two books. Then he says, ‘Some have added Tobias and 
Judith, making twenty-four (books), after the letters of the 
Greek alphabet.” * 

Whether these obscure expressions of St. Hilary must be 
considered as an indorsement of the views of Origen regard- 
ing the Canon, cannot be defined. But it is beyond doubt 
that, in practice, the Bishop of Poitiers quotes both proto- and 
deutero-canonical books in exactly the same manner. “ He 
cites Wisdom and Sirach (Kcclesiasticus) as ‘prophets’; 
. . . Il Machabees (vii, 28) is introduced with ‘according 
to the prophet’; Wisdom is cited as Solomon’s (viii, 2); 
Judith (xvi, 3 is cited); so is Baruch (iii, 36); and Daniel 
Rill, oe 

Much more explicit than St. Hilary in his opposition to 
the deutero-canonical books is RuFINuS (f 410), a priest of 
Aquileia, in Northern Italy. His aim is to enumerate all 
the books which “are believed to be inspired by the Holy 


1 Mieng, P. L. vol. ix, col. 241; cfr. the words of CAsstoporus (M1GNg, P. L. vol. 
Ixx, cols. 1125, 1126). 
2 Davipson, Canon of the Bible, p. 193. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 55 


Spirit, according to the tradition of our ancestors and have 
been handed down by the Churches of Christ.” He there- 
fore gives all the books of the Hebrew Canon, and says 
“in his concluserunt numerum librorum Veteris Testamenti.”’ 
Next, he specifies all the books of the New Testament and 
adds: “ Heec sunt que Patres intra canonem concluserunt 
et ex quibus fidei nostrz assertiones constare voluerunt.”’ 
He further remarks that there are other books not canonical 
but ecclesiastical—Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobias, Judith 
and the books of the Machabees,—and of these he speaks as 
read in the churches “ que omnia legi quidem in ecclesiis 
voluerunt,” but not as authoritative in matters of faith “non 
tamen proferri ad auctoritatem ex his fidei confirmandam.” ' 

The mind of Rufinus concerning the deutero-canonical 
books is therefore plain: they stand on a lower level than 
the books of the Hebrew Canon, because ecclesiastical tra- 
dition has so decided. It is true that he does not name 
“the Fathers who have limited the canonical books to those 
which are contained in the Hebrew Bible, and who have set- 
tled that these only should be used as authoritative in mat- 
ters of faith,” but we can easily make them out. His views 
and even words connect him directly with those Eastern 
Fathers to whom we have just referred as opposed to the 
deutero-canonical books, and whose opinion he had accepted 
during his prolonged sojourn in Egypt and Palestine. They 
appear to him to form a sort of tradition from which he 
thinks no one has a right to depart.” Yet, despite his the- 
ory, Rufinus uses the deutero-canonical books and treats 
them as divinely inspired Scriptures.* 

This opposition of the priest of Aquileia to the books not 


1 Commentary on the Symbol of the Apostles, §$ 36-38 (Patrol. Lat., vol. xxi, col. 
374, Sq.) 

2 Cfr. Lotsy, loc. cit., p. 112; ViGouroux, Manuel Biblique, vol. i,n. 33; and Dic- 
tionnaire de la Bible, art. Canon, p. 154. 

3 Cfr, CoRNELY, larger Introductio, vol. i, p. 103. 


56 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


found in the Hebrew Bible is fully shared by his great adver- 
sary, SOPHRONIUS EusEBIUS HIERONYMUS, better known 
under the name of St. JEROME (f 420). ‘Time and again, 
this illustrious Doctor of the Latin Church rejects the author- 
ity of the deutero-canonical books in the most explicit man- 
ner. ‘Thus, in the preface’ to his translation of the books 
of Kings (written in 391) he says “this prologue to the Scrip- 
tures may suit as a helmed preface to all the books which 
we have rendered from Hebrew into Latin; that we may 
know that whatever is beyond these must be reckoned 
among the Asocrypha. ‘Therefore, the Wisdom of Solo- 
mon, as it is commonly entitled, and the book of the son of 
Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) and Judith, and Tobias, and the 
Shepherd are not in the Canon... .” 

In his epistle to Paulinus (about 394), he draws up a 
Canon of the Old Testament, without even mentioning the 
deutero-canonical books,* whilst in his preface to Esdras 
(394 A.D.), he says: “Let no one be astonished that we 
edited only one book (of Esdras); nor let him delight in the 
dreams found in the third and fourth apocryphal books of 
Esdras. For among the Hebrews the works of Esdras and 
Nehemias are united in one book, and what is not found in 
them, and among the twenty-four old men (that is, the 
twenty-four books of the Hebrew Canon) should be put aside 
and kept at a considerable distance from them.” * 

A few years later (in 398), he writes in his preface to the 
works of Solomon these strange words: “ Moreover, there 
is the book zavdépetos of Jesus, the son of Sirach, and 
another pseudepigraph which is entitled the Wisdom of 
Solomon. . . . As the Church reads the books of Judith, 


1 It is commonly referred to under the name of Prologus Galeatus (MIGNB, Pat. Lat, 
tom. xxviii, col. 555, sq.). 

2 MIGNE) PiayeyOlexxil, cols 4acusd: 

3 Miang, P. L., vol. xxviii, col. 1403. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 57 


and Tobias, and of the Machabees, but does not receive 
them among the canonical Scriptures, so also it reads these 
two books for the edification of the people, but not for the 
confirmation of revealed doctrine.” * 

As might naturally be expected, the deutero-canonica- 
parts of books are not better treated by St. Jerome than the 
entire books we have just heard him call pseudepigraphic 
and uwncanonwal, ‘Thus the additions to Esther found in the 
Septuagint he severely qualifies as superfluous adjuncts and 
oratorical amplifications.” The fragments of Daniel have 
apparently for ‘‘ the doctors of Greece” and for him, “ noth- 
ing of the authority which attaches to Holy Writ;’’* whilst 
in his preface to Jeremias (as late as the year 414), he says: 
“IT did not feel bound to explain the small book of Baruch, 
which is usually added (to Jeremias) in the Septuagint, but . 
is not found in the Hebrew, nor the pseudepigraphic epistle 
of Jeremias”’ (that is, chap. vi of Baruch in our Vulgate).’ 

It is true that, at times, the opposition of the illustrious 
Doctor to the deutero-canonical books seems to abate a little. 
It is most likely, however, that he acts thus through a motive 
of prudence, and he himself informs us that he has trans- 
lated the book of Tobias “not to disobey the orders of 
bishops.”’* If we wish to have his full mind, we have only 
to read his private letter (written in 403) to a holy Roman 
matron named Leta. He mentions first the various books 
of Holy Writ in the order he wishes that her daughter 
should peruse them, and then he adds: ‘ Let her distrust all 
the apocryphal books. If, however, she desires to read 
them, not indeed to draw from them arguments in favor of 
Christian doctrines, but simply for the sake of the miracles 


1 Mieng, P. L., vol. xxviii, col. 1242, sq. 
2 Miang, ibid., col. 1433, sq. 

3 Micng, ibid, cols. 1292-1294. 

4 Mieng, P. L., vol. xxv, eols.492, 493. 

5 Micng, P. L., vol. xxix, col. 24, sq. _ 


58 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, 


therein recorded, let her understand that they are not the 
work of those whose name they bear, that many mischievous 
things have crept into them, and that the utmost prudence 
is necessary to seek for gold in the mud.”? 

Finally, St. Jerome is the sole Father on record as quot- 
ing sometimes the deutero-canonical books with a restriction 
concerning their canonical character. Thus, in his com- 
mentary on Jonas (about 397), he quotes the book of 
Tobias ‘ licet non habeatur in Canone, tamen quia usurpa- 
tur ab ecclesiasticis viris.” * Again, in his commentary on 
Aggeus, he cites a passage of Judith with the significant re- 
mark: ‘Si quis tamen vult librum recipere mulieris.” * In 
the same way, he introduces in his commentary on Zacha- 
rias, a quotation from Wisdom, by these words: “Si cui 
tamen placet librum recipere.” * 

Usually, however, he quotes the deutero-canonical books 
in the same manner as we have seen it done by Rufinus, 
St. Hilary, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Athanasius, etc.: “In 
his letter to Eustochium, Sirach iii, 33, comes between cita- 
tions from Matthew and Luke, and is introduced by ‘ which 
is written,’ in a letter to Pammachius, whilst xxii, 6, of the 
same book has ‘ divine Scripture ’applied to it. Ruth, Esther 
and Judith are spoken of as ‘holy volumes.’”’ ® 

We are therefore entitled to conclude with such Catholic 
scholars as Corluy, S.J., Loisy, etc.,* that, as in the case of 
the other opponents of the deutero-canonical books, the 
practice of St. Jerome differs from his theory. His private 
view is strongly against the books or parts of books not 
found in the Hebrew Bible, and in so far he clearly wit- 


1 Miceng, P. L., vol. xxii, col. 876, sq. 

2 Mieng, P. L., vol. xxv, col. 1119. 

3 Mieng, P. L., vol. xxv, col. 1394. 

€ MIGNE, PI) vol. xxv, col: 1465. 

5 Davipson, Canon of the Bible, p. 191, sq. 
6 For a different view, see FRANZELIN and CORNELY. 


s 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 59 


nesses to the existence of a restricted Canon. On the 
other hand, as he uses at times the deutero-canonical books, 
affirms that the Church reads some of them for the edifica- 
tion of the Christian people, translates himself a few of them 
because requested to do so by bishops, it is no less clear 
that he is aware of a fuller Canon than that of the Jews, and 
that he remains a strong, though involuntary witness, to a 
Canon which is still that of the Christian Church. 


2. Arguments in Favor of the Deutero-canonical 
Books. Whatever reasons may be set forth to explain this 
theoretical deviation from tradition on the part of the illus- 
trious Doctors of the fourth century to whom we have just 
referred,’ it remains true that the practical use which they 
make of the deutero-canonical books goes right against their 
speculative views. In theory, they claim a higher authority 
for the books of the Hebrew Bible ; in practice, they quote 
indiscriminately (except at times, St. Jerome) from both the 
proto- and deutero-canonical writings, and apply to them 
all the sacred name of Scripture. They clearly know “ of a 
Jewish and a Christian Canon in relation to the Old Testa- 
ment; the latter wider than the former ; their private opinion 
being more favorable to the one, though the other was his- 
torically transmitted.” * It would therefore be difficult to 
find a stronger proof that the Alexandrian Canon still con- 
tinued to be the one found in the Bible which was commonly 
used and quoted in the Christian Church.* 

To this first argument in favor of the deutero-canonical 
books may be added another hardly less convincing. It is 
derived from the positive and direct testimony of the cata- 


1 These reasons are well given by Lorsy, Canon de lA. T., pp. 121-124 ; CHAUVIN, 
Lecons d’Introduction Générale, pp. 124-128. 

2 S. Davipson, the Canon of the Bible, p. 171 sq. 

3 Cfr, MALou, Lecture de la Ste Bible en langue Vulgaire, vol. ii, p..150 ; and CorLuy, 
S.J., in JauGey, Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi Catholique, art. Canon, p. 368, sq. 


60 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


_ 


fogues of canonical books which were drawn up during this 
same period. Leaving aside the list of the Sacred Scrip- 
tures ascribed by some to the Council of Nice, and that re- 
ferred to Pope St. Damasus, because their genuineness 
seems doubtful, we shall mention first the important docu- 
ment which was recently published by Th. Mommsen (in 
1886) and which goes back to about the middle of the fourth 
century A.D. It claims to be “a list of the cazonical books 
of the Old Testament,” and it includes both the proto- and 
the deutero-canonical books in its enumeration.’ A similar 
list, a little later in date, but of greater importance because 
of its official character, is that which was drawn up in the 
Council of Hippo, in 393, and was promulgated over again 
by the third and sixth Councils of Carthage, held in 397 and 
Aig respectively. The Fathers of these Councils decree first 
‘that none but canonical Scriptures shall be read in Church 
under the name of divine Scriptures.” Next, they distinctly 
enumerate the books which they call ‘‘ canonical Scriptures,” 
and among these are found allthe deutero-canonical writings 
of the Old Testament. 

Finally, they declare their desire that the Pope occupying 
at the timé the See or St, (Peter, “contirm their canon, tor 
say they, “ these are the books which the Fathers have 
transmitted to us for public reading at church.” * , 

Perhaps the reader will be somewhat surprised that the 
African bishops gathered in council, should have felt the 
need to promulgate the fuller Alexandrian Canon no less than 
three times within the short period of thirty years, and to 
appeal repeatedly to the Sovereign Pontiff for a confirmation 
of their decree ; but a sufficient explanation of this may be 
found in the circumstances of the time. On the one hand, 


1 See that Catalogue in Vicouroux, Dictionnaire de la Bible, art. Canon, p. 152. 
2 Cfr. DENzINGER, Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum ; also CorNBELY, larget 
Introductio, vol. i, p. 85. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 61 


St. Jerome, the greatest biblical scholar of the day, had 
publicly declared himself in 390, 394 and 405 a.p. favor- 
able to the limited Canon of the Hebrew Bible ; and on the 
other hand, St. Augustine, the opponent of St. Jerome on 
many scriptural topics, admitted the Alexandrian Canon,’ and 
was doing his utmost to have it distinctly recognized by his 
colleagues in the African episcopate. Finally, it was well 
known that St. Jerome had made a long residence in Rome, 
where he had been a personal friend of Pope St. Damasus 
(fF 384), so that it was deemed desirable to secure from 
Rome itself a formal approval of the fuller Canon, in order 
to prevent all supposition that he had borrowed from the 
Roman Church his views concerning the Hebrew Canon. 

The last official catalogue of the Western Church to be 
~mentioned here in favor of the deutero-canonical books is 
the list of the sacred writings which Pope St. INNocenT I 
sent In 405 A.D., to St. Exsuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, in 
Southern Gaul. The latter was a personal friend and corre- 
spondent of St. Jerome, and the bold expressions of the great 
biblical scholar against the deutero-canonical books had 
greatly shaken his belief in their authority. He therefore 
consulted Pope St. Innocent about “ the books admitted in 
the Canon,” and received from him a list which comprised 
all the writings of the Alexandrian Canon.’ 

It is in vain that we would look for equally explicit cata- 
logues in favor of the deutero-canonical books on the part 
of the Eastern Church. Two things, however, are well 
known as favorable tothem. First, the Greek churches con- 
tinued to use the Septuagint Version which always contained 
the deutero-canonical books mingled with those of the 
Hebrew Canon,’® and next, as stated above, the leading 


1 Cfr. St. AUGUSTINE, on Christian Doctrine, Book ii, chap. viii. 
2 Cfr. Micne, Patr. Lat., vol. xx, cols. 501, 502. 
8 This is proved by the contents of the Greek manuscripts of that period, such as the 


62 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


ecclesiastical writers of the East ever quoted as Scripture 
both classes of books. 

A last argument in favor of the deutero-canonical books 
is drawn from the usage made of them by the Syrian 
Fathers, notably by St. CHrysostom (f 407) and THEODORET 
(f about 458), the two greatest representatives of the An- 
tiochian school. ‘ They use the apocryphal (i. e. the deu- 
tero-canonical) books freely, and without distinguishing them 
from the books of the Hebrew Canon. ‘Thus Chrysostom, 
to take only one example, quotes passages from Saruch, 
Leclesiasticus, and Wisdom as divine Scripture.’’’ 


Vaticanus, the Sinaiticus, the Alexandrinus and the Ephremiticus, and also by the 
contents of the 4¢hiopfic and Armenian versions of Holy Writ which were made from 
Greek manuscripts. 

1 Westcort, The Bible in the Church, p. 175. As regards Afphraates (about 340 
A. bp.) and St. Ephrent (+ 378), see Lorsy, Canon de 1’A. T., pp. 109, 110; and CHaAu- 
vin, Lecons d’Introduction, p. 118, sq. 


SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER III. 


THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN 
CHURCH. 
Section II. From the Middle of the Fifth Century to our Day. 


i 
FROM THE 
In the East, especially among the Greeks (The Trullan 
MIDDLE OF Council). 
FIFTH 


CENTURY TO ‘In the West (Italy; Transalpine Countries; North 


Africa). 
THE TENTH 
CENTURY: [ 
The twofold opinion current in the Western Church ; 
THE MIDDLE how accounted for. 


Werk The Council of Florence. 





. Beginning of { Opposition of some Catholic scholars 
to the deutero-canonical books. 
the Sixteenth ; Views of the reformers concerning 
the Canon and deutero-canonical 
Century : books. 


The Counc ( The question of the Canon examined 


and settled. 
pfelrente \is decree fully justified by a ret- 
FROM THE rospect. 


General acceptance 
Attitude of of deutero-canon- 
ical books; yet, 
Catholics : isolated §opposi 
Saoince. the tion to them. 


SIXTEENTH 
CENTURY TO 


ouR Day: 


Council of Public Confessions 
and _ theological 
Trent: Action of works. 
Orthodox and Ra- 
Protestants : tionalistic schools 
of nineteenth 
century. 


63 


CHAPTER III. 


THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN 
CHURCH. 


SecTION II. From THE MIDDLE OF THE FIFTH CENTURY 
TO Our Day. 


§ 1. From the Middle of the Fifth Century to the Tenth 
Century. 


Ir would be a long and tedious task to record and examine 
in detail each of the testimonies, cither favorable or opposed 
to the deutero-canonical books from the middle of the fifth 
century to the tenth century of our era. Naturally enough, 
most of them simply reproduce the tradition of the past, and 
only a few exhibit features of permanent interest. Our sur- 
vey of the East and of the West during this period will 
therefore be very rapid, and will refer chiefly to the tes- 
timonies of real importance. 


1. The Canon in the East. The first important fact 
to be noticed here, is connected with the two great Oriental 
sects known in history as the WVestorians and the Monophysites. 
At the time of their separation from the Church in the fifth 
century, they possessed both the proto- and the deutero-canon- 
ical writings, and, as far as can be ascertained, they ever 
since kept both.’ 

1 Cfr. AssEMANI, Bibliotheca Orientalis, tom. iii; CORNELY, larger Introductio, vol. 


i, p. 113, sa. The Syrian Version made about 616 a.p. by Paul of Tella, contained 
also the full Canon. 


64 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 65 


Another fact of hardly less importance in the history of 
the Canon of the Old Testament, is connected with the 
Greek Church. Towards the end of the seventh century, the 
Council 2% Zru/o' laid down positions which gradually fixed 
the Canon for the Greeks on the basis of the Alexandrian 
Canon. It did not indeed enumerate the separate books of 
Holy Writ, but referred to older authorities, which included 
among others the eighty-five Canons of the Apostles* and 
the decrees of the Council of Carthage. As the former reck- 
oned three books of the Machabees, and the latter contained 
all the books of the Alexandrian Canon, the Greeks, anxious 
not to omit from their list of sacred books any writing which 
had even the indirect sanction of the Council zz ZruZ/o, soon 
framed a Canon which appears as more than complete in 
our judgment. Thus did it come to pass that their catalogue 
of sacred writings has contained one book (viz., the third 
book of the Machabees) over and above those of the West- 
ern Church. 

As might naturally be expected, a few Doctors of the 
East, imitating in this some of their illustrious predecessors, 
held private views on the Canon, or rather borrowed them 
from the great Fathers of the fourth century. This is the 
case with Lrontius of Byzantium (about 600 a.p.), who, in 
his work, Ox the Sects, gives a Canon clearly identical — 
with that of St. Athanasius.® In like manner, St. JoHN 
DAMASCENE (f 754) records a catalogue * which seems bor- 
rowed from St. Epiphanius, as may be inferred from the 
following facts: (1) He enumerates the same twenty-two 
books ; (2) he arranges them in the same general order; 


1 Thus named from a hall in the imperial palace at Constantinople, called tpotAAos. 

2 The text of these Canons is found in CoTetigr, Patr. Apost., vol. i. The list of 
sacred books is at page 448 of the 2d Antwerp edition, 1700 A. D. 

3 Lorsy, Canon de l’Ancien Testament, p. 137; TROCHON, Introduction Générale 
vol. i, p. 160, sq. 

# On the Orthodox Faith, Book iv, chap. xvii. 


66 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


and (3), like St. Epiphanius, he closes his list with this pecu- 
liar remark: “ The wisdom of Solomon, and Jesus, son of 
Sirach (i. e. Ecclesiasticus), are indeed beautiful and excel- 
lent works ; yet they are not numbered with the others, and 
in olden times they were not preserved in the Ark.” ' 
Finally, it is also probable that NicEpHorus, Patriarch of 
Constantinople (f 828), gives an incomplete Canon of the 
sacred books, because he conforms his theoretical views to 
those of some one or other of the illustrious Fathers of the 
past.” 


2. The Canon in the West. It was only natural that 
the tradition of the Church regarding the Canon of Holy 
Writ should be kept, during this period, even more faithfully 
in the West than in the East. As we have seen in our last 
chapter, only a few Western writers had been really influ- 
enced by the Eastern opponents of the deutero-canonical 
books, and it would take a considerable time before the 
prefaces and other writings of St. Jerome could tell effect- 
ively against what had ever been considered the received 
Canon of the Roman Church and of the Western churches 
at large. In point of fact, until the ninth century, papal 
lists,2 contents of manuscripts,’ ecclesiastical writings, 
whether of Italy, Spain, or England,” witness generally in 
favor of the full Alexandrian Canon. It cannot be denied, 
however, that even before the ninth century, Pope St. 
Gregory the Great (f 604) seems to have been influenced 
by St. Jerome’s views against the deutero-canonical books, 


1Cfr St. EprpHanius, de Ponderibus et Mensuris, § 4. 

2 See Lotsy, loc. cit., pp. 145-149 ; TRocHon, Introduction Générale, vol. i, p. 161. 

3 Those ascribed to Popes St. H1Lary (ft 468), St. GELAstus (t+ 496), St. HormMIsDAS 
(t 523). 

4 Such as the A miatinus, the Toletanus, etc. 

5 Those of Dtonystus Exiguus (ft 536), and Cassroporus (tf 562), in Italy; of 
St. Isrpore of Seville (f 636); St. Eucenius of Toledo (t 657); of St. ILDEFoNsus of 
Toledo (t+ 669), in Spain; of Ven. Bepg (t 735), in England ; etc. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 67 


for he calls them “ books which, though not canonical, are 
received for the edification of the Church.” " To the same 
influence we can also trace back these words of PRIMAsIUs, 
Bishop of Adrumetum, in his commentary on the Apocalypse : 
“The twenty-four elders are the books of the Old Testa- 
ment, which we receive of that number as possessing canon- 
ical authority.” ” 

The ninth century presents, of course, numerous and val- 
uable testimonies in favor of the deutero-canonical books. 
But it offers, at the same time, clear proofs that the views of 
St. Jerome against them were gaining ground in the West- 
ern Church, while their admission into the Glossa Ordinaria 
of Walafrid Strabo (ft 849), gave them a currency sure to 
teli powerfully, and in a near future, against the full Alex- 
andrian Canon. In fact, it was at this juncture that, in a 
letter to the bishops of Gaul (in 865), Pope Nicholas I 
felt it needful to remind them that one of his predecessors, 
St. Innocent I, had formerly enacted a decree in favor of 
all the books of the Old and of the New Testaments.3 


§ 2. The Middle Ages. 


I. The Twofold Opinion Current in the Western 
Church. At no other period in the history of the Canon 
of the Old Testament do we find such an array of ecclesiasti- 
cal writers against the full authority of the deutero-canonical 
books as in the Middle Ages. The best known among 
them, or most decided in their opposition, are NOTKER, the 
librarian of St. Gall (f 912); Rupert, Abbot of Deutz, 
feat, Cologne (f 1135) ;‘Huco of ‘St. Victor (f: 1140); 


1Cfr. Micng, P. L., vol. Ixxvii, col. 119. The view adopted in the text is that of 
Vigouroux, Trochon, Loisy, etc. 

2 Cfr. Mieng, P. L., vol. lxviii, col. 818. 

3 Cfr. Lotsy, Canon de l’A. T., pp. 151-158, 


68 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


PETER the Venerable, Abbot of Clugny (f 1156); JOHN 
of Salisbury, Bishop of Chartres (f 1180); the Dominican 
and Cardinal Huco a S. Caro (f 1263); the Franciscan 
NicHo.tas de Lyra (f 1340); and finally, the famous 
WILLIAM OCKHAM (f 1347). Side by side with those oppo- 
nents of the deutero-canonical books, lived men no less 
numerous and no less decided in favor of the books which 
were not found in the Hebrew Bible. The principal wit- 
nesses in their favor are the celebrated LurrpRanpD, Bishop 
of Cremona (f 972); BurRcHARD of Worms (about 1020), 
and GRATIAN (f 1155), in their collections of the sacred 
canons; St. STEPHEN HarpinG, Abbot of Citeaux, together 
with GIsLEBERT, Abbot of Westminster at the beginning of 
the twelfth century; PETER of Riga, and GILuLeEs of Paris, 
towards the end of the same century; and in the next, 
STEPHEN LancTon, Archbishop of Canterbury (f 1228) ; 
St. BONAVENTURA (f 1274),and ALBERTUS MaGunus (f 1282); 
finally, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, THomas of 
Walden (f 1430), and Joun of Ragusa (f 1450). From this 
simple enumeration of the principal opponents and defenders 
of the deutero-canonical books, it may readily be inferred 
that since their series keeps on from century to century, we are 
in presence of a twofold opinion current in the churches of 
the West, the one favorable to‘the writings which were not 
found in the Hebrew Bible, the other ascribing to them only 
an inferior authority. 

If now we inquire into the causes of this persistent divi- 
sion between the ecclesiastical writers of the Middle Ages, 
we shall find that its main, if not its exclusive, cause, is the 
influence which the views of St. Jerome exercised upon the 
minds of many Doctors of that period. Not only were his 
opinions against the deutero-canonical books, circulated by 


.1 See their testimonies in CoRNELY, larger Introductio, pp. 123-132 ; Lorsy, loc. cit., 
pp. 164-178 ; and Westcott, The Bible in the Church, pp. 198, sqq. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 6g 


means of the Glossa Ordinaria, but his Prologus Galeatus 
that “helmed preface,’’ in which he declares himself so 
strongly against all the books not found in the Hebrew 
Text, had become the necessary introduction to every man- 
uscript of the Vulgate. His prefaces to the other books 
were also extensively circulated, and read together with the 
sacred text.’ Nay more, as they were the work of a great 
saint whom God had raised to supply His Church with a 
version of the Holy Writ, and whom, as many supposed, the 
Holy Spirit had guided in a special manner in translating 
the sacred text, they at times shared to some extent in the 
reverence borne to the Word of God.* More usually, of 
course, these prefaces were treated simply as the work of an 
illustrious man. But even then, their authority appeared 
supreme in the eyes of many, for they had been composed 
by the greatest biblical scholar of the past, by the writer 
best acquainted with the ancient traditions of the East and 
of the West. It is not therefore to be wondered at, if the 
views so unfavorable to the deutero-canonical books which 
these prefaces contained, seemed tenable to many schoolmen, 
and were, in fact, held by them, in the teeth of contrary 
practice in the Church, and of disciplinary decrees of the 
Pope. Finally, as it was the fashion of the time to get rid 
of difficulties by means of subtle distinctions, several eccle- 
siastical writers saw easily their way to reconcile the state- 
ments of St. Jerome, in his prefaces, with the papal decrees 
and the practice of the Church. They readily granted two 
things, viz.: (1) That the Popes had ordered the reception 
of certain books not found in the Hebrew Bible, because 
they were “true and divine”; and (2), that for the same 
motive the Church had received them and continued to use 
them in her public services. But they denied that these two 


1 Cfr. UDALRic, Consuetudines Cluniacenses, in Miang, P. L., vol. cxlix, cols. 643, 644 
2 Cfr. CORNELY, larger Introductio, vol. i, p. 122. 


7O GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


things conflicted in any way with the statements of the holy 
Doctor, inasmuch as his words referred only to the canonical 
character of all such books. They thought, therefore, that 
the positions of St. Jerome were perfectly tenable, and, in con: 
sequence, they spoke of the books which were not found in 
the Hebrew Bible as “true and divine,” as “received by 
the: Church,” “as “*so00d@and* toe sbeswecelved,” etc. ever, 
while they refused to ascribe to them the full dignity and 
authority of canonical writings. 

Over against the authority of St. Jerome, the defenders 
of the deutero-canonical books set now that of St. Augus- 
tine, and now that of the Popes whose decrees were clearly 
in their favor and had been embodied in the great collec- 
tions of ecclesiastical Canons. It was also easy for them to 
appeal to the undeniable fact that, despite all the theories of 
their opponents, these books had ever been and still con- 
tinued to be used for liturgical, doctrinal and exegetical pur- 
poses, in exactly the same manner as the books found in 
the Hebrew Bible. Finally, they naturally felt, and indeed 
were not slow to affirm, that to the Church alone belonged 
the right to declare which books made up the Christian 
Canon, and that she had plainly and repeatedly counted 
among her canonical books others beside those of the 
Hebrew Bible. 


2. The Council of Florence. It was this tradition of 
the Church which was urged by JoHN of Ragusa (f 1450) in 
one of the sessions of the Council of Basle, when he said: 
Libri qui apud Judeos in auctoritate non habentur... . 
Qui tamen apud nos in eadem veneratione et auctoritate 
habentur sicut et ceteri; et hoc utique nonnist ex traditione 
et acceptatione universalis Ecclesia catholice, guibus con- 
fradicere nullo modo licet pertinaciter.’ It was this same 
ecclesiastical tradition which was solemnly proclaimed a 


1 Lappe, Acta Conciliorum, vol. viii, col. 1751 (Paris edit., 1714 a.n). 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 71 


little later in the Council of Florence, when Eugenius IV, 
with the approval of the Fathers of that assembly,’ declared 
all the books found in the Latin Bibles then in use to be 
inspired by the same Holy Spirit, without distinguishing 
them into two classes or categories. He enumerated Tobias 
and Judith between Nehemias and Esther; Wisdom and 
Ecclesiasticus between Canticle of Canticles and Isaias; 
Baruch before Ezechiel, and two books of the Machabees at 
the end of the Old Testament. 

Two things should be noticed in connection with this docu- 
ment which professes to voice the belief of the whole 
Church. First, it is plain “that the Church of Rome con- 
cerned herself very little with the caprices or the theories of 
her great writers (of the Middle Ages), and continued to 
walk with a firm step in the path marked out by the ancient 
usages of her ritual.” * Next, the bull of Eugenius IV did 
not deal with the canonicity of the books which were not 
found in the Hebrew Text, but simply proclaimed their 7- 
spiration, so that even after its promulgation one would not 
go against the official teaching of the Church in reserving 
the title of canonical for the books of the Hebrew Bible, pro- 
vided he distinctly acknowledged as zzsfired all the books 
enumerated by the Council. 

In point of fact, during the second part of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, that is, after the close of the Council of Florence, some 
ecclesiastical writers, such as ALPHONSUS TosTAT, Bishop of 
Avila (f 1455), St. ANTonINUS, Archbishop of Florence 
(f 1459), and Dionysius the Carthusian (f 1471), continued 
to hold the views of St. Jerome against the deutero-canonical 
books.3 

1 The genuineness of the bull of Eugenius IV has been wrongly assailed by Bleek 
and Westcott. Cfr. Lasppr, Acta Conciliorum, vol. ix, col. 1021, sq.; and THEINER, 
Acta Genuina Concilii Tridentini, vol. i, pp. 68, 70. 


2 Reuss, History of the Canon of Holy Scripture, p. 269 (Engl. Transl.). 
8 Cfr. Lotsy, Canon de |’Ancien Testament, pp. 180-183. 


72 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


§ 3. from the Sixteenth Century to our Day. 


I. Beginning of the Sixteenth Century. As in 
the latter part of the preceding century, so in the beginning 
of the sixteenth century, do we find some Cztholic scholars 
opposed to the books which were not contained in the He- 
brew Text. The first among these is the illustrious Spaniard, 
Cardinal Ximenes (f 1517). Inthe preface to his magnifi- 
cent edition of the Bible in several languages called the 
folyglot of Ximenes, he reproduces the passages of St. 
Jerome against the deutero-canonical books of the Old Tes- 
tament. ‘The books,” he writes, “which are without the 
Canon, which the Church receives rather for the edification 
of the people than for the establishment of ecclesiastical 
doctrines are given only in Greek, but in a double transla- 
tion.”’* Another opponent of the deutero-canonical books 
during this period is the celebrated humanist, Erasmus 
(t 1536). He does not indeed declare himself openly against 
them, but his manner of referring to their rejection by the 
ancients, and of speaking of his own uncertainty as to the 
real mind of the Church regarding the whole matter, etc., 
shows beyond doubt that his vague expressions are due ex- 
clusively to his desire not to compromise himself in the eyes 
of his ecclesiastical superiors.” Far less guarded are the 
words of his contemporary, the Dominican THomas de Vio, 
better known under the name of Cardinal Cajeran (f 1534). 
At the end of his commentary on the book of Esther, the 
outspoken cardinal writes: ‘In this place, we close our com- 
mentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament, for 
the remaining books (Judith, Tobias, I and II Machabees) 
are reckoned by St. Jerome without the canonical books and 
placed among the Apocrypha together with Wisdom and 


1 Westcott, The Bible in the Church, p. 249. 
2 Loisy, loc. cit., p. 183 ; WEsTCcoTT, loc. cit., p. 252, 8q. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 73 


Ecclesiasticus. . . . Nor must you be disturbed by the 
strangeness of the fact, if you shall anywhere find these 
books reckoned among the canonical books, either in the ~ 
sacred Councils or in the holy Doctors. For the language of 
Councils and Doctors must alike be revised by the judgment 
of Jerome; and according to his opinion those books and 
any others there may be like them in the Canon of the 
Bible, are not canonical in the sense of establishing points 
of faith; yet they can be called canonical for the edification 
of the faithful, inasmuch as they are received in the Canon 
of the Bible for this purpose, and treated with respect. For 
with this distinction, you will be able to understand the 
words of Augustine, and what was written in the Florentine 
Council under Eugenius IV, and what was written in the 
provincial councils of Carthage and Laodicea, and by 
Popes Innocent and Gregory.”’ * 

While Cardinal Cajetan was showing himself so opposed 
to the deutero-canonical books and to the traditional argu- 
ments in their favor, LUTHER (f 1546) and the other early 
reformers—ZwINGLI (f 1531), C©COLAMPADIUS (Tf 1531), Bo- 
DENSTEIN de Carlstadt (f 1541), and CALvIN (f 1564)— 
were taking a still more radical stand against them. In their 
desire to do away with every authority distinct from Holy 
Writ, they claimed that, independently of Church and tradi- 
tion, a book proves itself to the regenerated man as truly 
containing the Word of God, and worthy to be numbered 
among the canonical Scriptures. Of course it was no easy 
task to point out the manner in which a book proves itself 
inspired to the individual believer; this, however, was at- 
tempted, though with but little success. Each one, accord- 
ing to Luther, can judge of the canonical character of a 
book by the value of its teachings concerning God and 


1 The passage is found in CornELY, larger Introductio, vol. i, p. 135. 


74 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


man’s salvation; that is to say, by its degree of conformity 
with the system of justification by faith alone. Of this 
theory of the father of the Reformation, Westcott himself, a 
Protestant writer, says: ‘“‘ No Church could rest on a theory 
which made private feeling the supreme authority as to 
doctrine and the source of doctrine. As a natural conse- 
quence, the later Lutherans abandoned the teaching of their 
great master on the written Word.” ’ 

Nor was the test of canonicity devised by Calvin found to 
work better in practice. He maintained that “ the authority 
of Scripture is to be grounded on something higher than 
human reasonings or proofs or conjectures, viz., on the inner 
witness of the Holy Spirit.”* And again he says: ‘“ As to 
their question (the question of his Catholic opponents) how 
are we to know that the Scriptures came from God if we 
cannot refer to the decree of the Church, we might as well 
ask how we are to learn to distinguish light from darkness, 
white from black, bitter from sweet.’’3 This test of Calvin 
has indeed commended itself to many minds outside the 
Church during the last centuries, but only in theory. For, 
as Reuss justly remarks, “ the conscientious historian cannot 
help showing that this theory . . . has proved to be insuf- 
ficient in practice, and that those who formulated it were the 
first to diverge from it, and to drift into strange inconsist- 
encies,” ~ | 

Whatever may be thought of the practical value of these 
tests of canonicity invented by the early reformers, it is 
beyond doubt that they and their associates rejected from 
the first, and with remarkable unanimity, all the deutero-ca_ 
nonical books of the Old Testament. In their editions of 


1 Westcott, The Bible in the Church, p. 265. 

* Cfr. Reuss, History of the Canon of Holy Scripture, p. 302 (Engl. Transl.). 
3 Ctr. Reuss, ibid, p. 295. 

* Ibid, p. 304. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 75 


the Bible—German and French alike—these books were 
placed apart, with a special collective title, and usually with 
some such notices as the following: “ Here are the bcoks 
which are not numbered by the ancients among the biblical 
writings and which are not found in the Hebrew Canon; ”’! 
or “ Apocrypha, that is books which are not held as of equal 
authority with Holy Writ, but which are useful and good for 
2 Again, in a whole series of Bibles of this period, 
we read the following passage: “These bcoks called the 
Apocrypha were at all times distinguished from those which 
were without difficulty held to be the Holy Scriptures. . 

It is true that they are not to be despised, inasmuch as they 
contain good and useful doctrine. At the same time, it is 
very right that what was given by the Holy Spirit should 


993 


reading. 


have pre-eminence above what came from men. 

These and other such notices have much historical sig- 
nificance. They prove, first of all, that though the reform- 
ers and their early adherents denied the inspiration of the 
deutero-canonical books, still they did not see their way to 
exclude them absolutely from the Bible. In presence of the 
usage and tradition of past ages, they deemed it advisable 
to make a compromise between theory and practice, and in 
so far they were the real, though unwilling, witnesses to the 
faith and reverence which these books had ever enjoyed in 
the Church before the Reformation. 

In the second place, these notices point clearly to the real 
standard of canonicity which the early reformers followed 
when they separated the deutero-canonical books from the 
others, denied their inspiration and refused them the title of 
canonical. “Was it really in virtue of the sovereign prin- 


1 This inscription is found in the Bibles of Zurich, the oldest that are complete (1529 
A. 2) Rewvss, ibid, p, 307. 
2 Notice found in the Lutheran Bibles of 1534 a.p.; cfr. Westcott, The Bible i in 
the Church, p. 262. 
3 Notice in the Genevan Bibles quoted by Reuss, loc. cit., p. 308, sq. 


"6 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


ciple of the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit? Would it 
be quite true to say that the first Protestant theologians, 
while unmoved by the enthusiastic eloquence of the author 
of Wisdom, so much extolled by the Alexandrians, felt the 
breath of God in the genealogies of Chronicles, or the topo- 
graphical catalogues of the book of Josue? Did they really 
find so great a difference between the miracles of the Chal- 
dean Daniel and those of the Greek Daniel that they felt 
bound to remove two chapters from the volume which bears 
Daniel’s name? I have some difficulty in believing that they 
arrived at the dzstinction they drew by any test of that kind. 
On the other hand, it is very simple to suppose, or rather, it 
is very easy to prove, from their own declarations, that their 
purpose was to re-establish the Canon of the Old Testament 
in its primitive purity, such as it must have existed, accord- 
ing to common opinion, among the ancient Jews—i. e., as 
we know it in our Hebrew Bibles. As an actual fact, they 
do not fail to invoke the custom of the Hrsrews in the 
notices of which I have given extracts. . . . Their procedure 
was exactly that which in principle they had condemned; 
they implicitly acknowledged the authority of tradition, and — 
thus returned to the very position which they had loftily de- 
clared their intention of quitting as untenable.” ’ 

Finally, these notices bear witness to the instinctive hatred 
which all the early reformers felt against the tradition and 
authority of the Church. They all agreed in rejecting the 
value of the deutero-canonical books, because it appeared in 
their eyes to be grounded exclusively on that same tradition 
and authority. Indeed, the expressions used in many of the 
notices with which they headed the so-called Apocrypha, and 
in which they strove to justify their conduct concerning 
them, were such as to produce upon the mind of the reader 
the impression that these books had been rejected after the 


1 Reuss, History of the Canon of the Holy Scripture, p 312, sq. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 6a 


tradition and authority of the Church in their favor had been 
tested and had proved wanting. 


2. The Council of Trent. In presence of these bold 
and repeated denials by Protestants of the inspired character 
of books which the Church had always regarded as sacred 
and truly divine, it was only natural that the question of the 
Canon and of the deutero-canonical books should be taken 
up and settled in one of the early sessions of the Council of 
Trent. In point of fact scarcely had all the Fathers of the 
Council solemnly proclaimed their assent to ‘‘ the symbo! of 
faith professed by the Church of Rome,” when they began 
to examine the question “of the Reception of the Sacred 
Books.” 

It was on the 11th of February, 1546, that the Fathers 
divided into three sections, called Particular Congregations 
and presided over by the three cardinal presidents of the 
Council, discussed the “manner in which the books of Holy 
Writ should be received.” ' A few members of the second 
section thought that it- was necessary to distinguish among 
the books received ‘ those that were authentic and canonical 
and on which our faith depended, and those that are only 
canonical, good for teaching and useful for reading in 
churches, after several writers and St. Jerome in his Pro/o- 
gus Galeatus.”’ The motion was defeated by the vote of the 
Fathers not only in this Particular Congregation, but also in 
the general meeting of the three sections’* that was held the 
following day, for the majority decided that “ no distinction 
should be made among the sacred books and that the ques- 
tion should be left, as it had been left by the Holy Fathers.” * 
On the 15th of February, the Fathers of the Council gathered 
again in a General Congregation decided that the sacred books 

1 Cfr A. THEINER, Acta Genuina Concil. Trid., p. 49. 


2 These general meetings were called General Congregations. 
8 Cfr. THEINER, loc. cit., p. 51, Sq. 


78 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


‘should be received purely and simply and enumerated as 
in the Council of Florence without stating the grounds in 
their favor.” They also discussed the question “ whether 
all the sacred books should be received egualiter et pari 
reverentia, although there is a great difference among them.” 
The majority seems to have preferred the expression pari 
pietatus affectu instead of the word eguatliter.’ 

On March 22d, a project of decree ‘‘ On the Reception of 
the Sacred Books and Apostolical Traditions” was dis- 
tributed to the Fathers, and its discussion in General Con- 
gregations began a few days later (March 27th). The text 
of the intended decree was sharply criticised in several of its 
parts, and the opinions were so divergent that in order to 
secure some manner of agreement, it was resolved to draw 
up a schedule of the debated points on which the Fathers 
would be expected to vote by PVacet or Won FPlacet in the 
next General Congregation (April rst). 

One of the debated questions (the fourth on the schedule) 
had been suggested by the fact that the projected decree 
simply reproduced the list of the sacred books (proto- and 
deutero-canonical included), which had been received at 
Florence, and made no reference to apocryphal writings such 
as the third and fourth books of Esdras, etc., which had 
hitherto been transcribed together with the inspired writings. 
The question was, therefore, “should these apocryphal 
productions be excluded positively by the terms of the de- 
cree, or should they simply be passed over in silence ” ?? 
Forty-one Fathers voted for passing them over in silence, 
four were in favor of mentioning expressly their rejection, 
eight hesitated.* | 


*”? appears in 


1 Cfr, THEINER, loc. cit., p. 52. The expression “ pari pietatis affectu 
the final form of the decree, instead of the word “ zqualiter.”’ 

2 Cfr. THEINER, loc. cit., p. 72. This is clearly the meaning of the fourth question: 
although Lorsy, loc. cit., p. 200, sq., understands it differently. 


3 Cfr. THEINER, loc. cit., p. 77- 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 79 


The tenth question asked “whether the words fro sacris 
et canonicts found in the decree should be maintained.” ‘The 
majority of the Fathers replied in the affirmative, while they 
all returned a negative answer to the thirteenth question, 
which ran as follows: “ Does the Holy Synod wish for a 
fresh discussion of points already decided in general meet- 
ings, as for instance not to distinguish between the received 
books, to enumerate them in the same manner as the Coun- 
cil of. Florence, étc. 2)” 

On April 5th, the amended project of decree was sub- 
mitted to the Fathers in a General Congregation. During 
the discussion, some of them expressed the wish that a dif- 
ference should be indicated between the sacred books. But 
their view could not, of course, prevail over the decision to 
the contrary which had been already reached in a General 
Congregation.’ 

The following day the revised decree underwent a last 
discussion in the Particular Congregations. In the course 
of the discussion the Bishop of Castelamare, a member of 
the second section, exclaimed: ‘“ The words fvo sacris et 
canonicis do not meet with my approval, because the book of 
Judith and some others are not found in the Canon of the 
Jews: I wish it would be said that they are in the Canon of 
the Church.’”’ Whereupon, the Cardinal of Holy Cross, who 
presided over the section, said: ‘ Your remark is quite cor- 
rect; but we follow the Canon of the Church and not that 
of the Jews. In calling these books canonical we have 
therefore in view the Canon of the Church: this is why the 
words prout in Vulgata latina editione habentur have been in- 
Berteciimicne sclecree, 

On April 8th, two months after the question of the Canon 
had been submitted to the Council, the decree was voted in 
the fourth solemn session. It ran as follows: 


! Cfr. THEINER, loc. cit., p. 84. 
2 THEINER, loc. cit., p. 86. 


80 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


“The sacred and holy, cecumenical, and general Synod of 


Trent . . . keeping this always in view, that errors being 
removed, the purity itself of the Gospel be preserved in 
the Church . . . and seeing clearly that this truth .. . is 


contained in the written books ...; following the ex- 
amples of the orthodox Fathers receives and venerates with 
an equal feeling of piety (fard pretatis affect) and reverence 
all the books of the Old and of the New Testament, seeing 
that God is the Author of both... . 

‘« And it has thought it meet that a list of the sacred books 
be inserted in this decree, lest a doubt may arise in any one’s 
mind, which are the books that are received by this Synod. 
They are as set down here below: 

“Of the Old Testament: The five books of Moses... 
Josue, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two of Paralipom- 
enon, the first book of Esdras, and the second which is 
entitled Nehemias; Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, the Davidic 
Psalter ; the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, 
Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias, with Baruch; 
Ezechiel, Daniel; the twelve minor prophets ...; two 
books of the Machabees, the first and the second. 


‘‘ But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the 
said books entire with all their parts, and as they have been 
used to be read in the Catholic Church and as they are 
contained in the old Latin Vulgate edition . . . let him be 
anathema. 

‘“‘ Let all, therefore, understand . . . what testimonies and 
authorities (fresidiis) the said Synod will mainly use in 
confirming dogmas, and in restoring morals in the Church.” ! 

By this dogmatic decree the Fathers of Trent clearly de- 


1 We have quoted only those passages of the decree which have a reference to the 
books of the Old Testament. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 81 


fined the canonicity of the deutero-canonical books and 
parts of books of the Old Testament, and did away with 
every difference in that respect between them and the books 
found in the Hebrew Bible. Leaving aside the question 
whether the sacred books differ from one another in other 
respects, such as for instance their usefulness for proving 
dogma,’ they solemnly declare that all the books of the 
Catholic Bible being inspired must be “ received as sacred 
and canonical.” As agreed upon in their meetings, they 
simply enumerate the books as had been done in the Coun- 
cil of Florence, and their list is identical with that of 
Eugenius IV. Finally, it is plain both from their previous 
meetings and from their final wording of the decree, that the 
Fathers of Trent simply wish to affirm solemnly against the 
errors of the time, the ancient faith of the Church concern- 
ing the books of Holy Writ. | 

Viewed from this standpoint, the decree of Trent must 
ever appear fully justified in the light of impartial history. 
As was shown briefly in the foregoing pages, the deutero- 
canonical books were never treated in the Christian Church 
as mere human compositions. From the Apostolic Age 
down to the middle of the fifth century they were used in 
public services, quoted in the same manner as the proto- 
canonical books, called Holy Scripture, and ecclesiastical 
tradition became gradually so strong in their favor that St. 
Jerome himself turned outto be its real, though unwilling, 
witness. So was it likewise in the following centuries and 
throughout the Middle Ages, despite the powerful influence 
of St. Jerome’s views upon the minds of many ecclesiastical 
writers of that period. So was it finally, at the beginning of 


1 This, we think, may be inferred from their express intention “ to leave the question 
of a distinction among the sacred books as it had been left by the Holy Fathers,” and 
also from their substituting the expression Jari pzetatis affectu for the word 
equaliter in the framing of the decree, because “there is a great difference among 
them,”’ i. e., among the sacred books. 


82 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


the sixteenth century, when, as we have seen, even the early 
reformers thought it advisable to make a compromise be- 
tween theory and practice, and not to reject absolutely from 
their Bibles, books which the tradition of ages had sur- 
rounded with so much faith and reverence. And let it be 
borne in mind that, in appealing to tradition as a sure means 
of determining which books were really inspired and hence 
canonical, the Fathers of Trent resorted to no new test of 
canonicity that would suit a purpose of theirs—as was done 
by the leaders of the Reformation—but simply used a 
standard that we have seen applied as early as Origen. 


3. Since the Council of Trent. As might naturally 
be expected, the decree of the Council of Trent was readily 
accepted by Catholic scholars at large. It was the authentic 
expression of the mind of the universal Church ‘the pillar 
and ground of the truth,”’’ and as such it deserved all the 
reverence and submission due to the solemn utterances of 
an infallible authority. Furthermore, it innovated nothing, 
but simply renewed the decree published in the preceding 
general Council at Florence, and set the final seal of supreme 
authority upon books which had always been “ received 
and venerated” in the Christian Church. 

It cannot be denied, however, that even after this dog- 
matic decision of the Council of Trent, a few Catholic 
writers thought it still allowable to maintain a real difference 
in respect of canonicity between the sacred books of the 
Old Testament. This was the case with MELCHIOR CANUS 
({ 1550) in reference to Baruch,” with Srxtus of Sienna 
(+ 1599) and Ertms Dupin (f+ 1719) in reference to the 
fragments of Esther.* Indeed, BERNARD Lamy (7.1714) 


1] Tim. iii, 15. 
2 De Locis Theologicis, lib. ii, cap. ix, Conclusio 1. 
® Cir; Lorsy, loc. cit, pp: 221, sq.'; 226, sq. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 83 


went so far asto say: Libri gui in secundo canone sunt, | 
licet conjuncti cum ceteris primt canonts, tamen non sunt 
ejusdem auctoritatis,; and his view was indorsed by JAHN 
(ft 1816) at the beginning of this century.’ 

Whilst the difference between proto- and deutero-canonical 
books was slowly dying away among Catholics it was sedu- 
lously kept up among Protestants in their public Confessions 
of faith of the second part of the sixteenth century, notably in 
the Gallican Confession of 1559 a.D.; in the Anglican 
Confession of 1562 A.D. (art. vi) ; and in the Second 
- Helvetic Confession of 1566 a.p.° As time went on, new 
and at times ridiculous arguments were set forth by Prot- 
estant divines to justify this distinction between the two 
.classes of books. ‘“ Generally they are unfaithful to the 
very principle of Protestantism. . . . Critics insisted. on 
the silence of the Jews, not remembering that the authority 
of the Church had been cast off; on the absence of pro- 
phetic types, though with small effort these would have been 
found in the Apocrypha quite as much as in hundreds of 
the passages in the Hebrew code that were arbitrarily inter- 
preted ; on the want of originality, the unfavorable opinions 
of some Fathers, and other like faults. A greater number 
condemned them because they are not in Hebrew, the proper 
language of the old Covenant, the natural language of God, 
the primitive language of humanity. This point was a 
favorite argument with them because, while vindicating the 
use of Greek for the New Testament only and Hebrew for 
the Old Testament, it attained the double purpose of refut- 
ing the canonicity of the Apocrypha and the authority of 
the Vulgate. 

‘‘ Those, on the other hand, who preserved more positive 


1 Cfr. CHAauvin, Lecons d’Introduction Générale, p. 249. 
2 Introduction to the Old Testament, § 30, p. 48 sq. (Engl. Transl... 
3 Cfr. PHitrp ScuaFr, Creeds of Christendom, vol. iii, pp. 361, 490, 238. 


84 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


remembrance of the old criterion, the witness of the Holy 
Spirit, diligently sought in the Apocrypha for historical 
errors, heresies, absurdities, all sorts of faults, to establish 
the point that religious sentiment was not wrong in exclud- 
ing them from the Canon. . . . The critics rivalled one with 
another in heaping on the Apocrypha the epithets suggested 
by contempt and prejudice. The Apocrypha were hated 
because Catholics were hated ; they were said to be filled 
with fables, errors, superstitions, lies, impieties ; and the 
violence of such attacks is surpassed only by the silliness of 
the proofs urged in support of them. One chides the son 
of Sirach for having said that the witch of Endor called forth 
the spirit of Samuel, orthodox exegesis pretending that it 
was only an evil spirit. Another discredits the story of 
Susanna, by finding it absurd that Joachim should have had 
a garden, since the Jews were captives. One is scandalized 
by the costume of Judith as she went to the camp of Holo- 
phernes ; another laughs over the name of the angel 
Raphael ; a third protests against the method of driving 
away demons by smoke. I have read one who is genuinely 
grieved because the demon of the book of Tobias is sent 
forever to Upper Egypt, whereas Jesus banished others 
into a desert from which they had a chance of returning. 
Not one of these ardent champions of the purity of the 
Canon foresees that criticisms so puerile, so unworthy of the 
subject and so pointless, will end in showing to superficial 
and scoffing minds the ways and means of sapping the 
authority of the whole Bible ; and that the scoffs thrown at 
the head of the little fish of Tobias, will sooner or later 
destroy Jonas’ whale.” ’ 

Nevertheless, strange to say, books described as so utterly 
worthless and contemptible were retained in the Bibles of 
all the Protestant sects down to the year 1826 when the 


1 Reuss, loc. cit., pp. 359-361. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 85 


British Bible Society began to issue copies of the Word 
of God, from which the Apocrypha had been excluded. 
The example thus given was not followed at once by the 
Protestant sects of the European continent. ‘There, the 
orthodox schools were most anxious to maintain the Canon 
pretty much in the same condition as at the time of the firs. 
leaders of the Reformation. In their eyes, as in those of 
the Protestant divines of the last centuries, only the books 
of the Hebrew Bible should be considered as inspired and 
belonging to the Canon, but the others may be profitable 
for reading and should not be entirely set aside. Since 
1850, however, almost all the Protestant sects have gradually 
given up the practice of publishing the Apocrypha, and it is 
well known that the English Revised Version, published 
in 1885, appeared without so much as a reference to 
them. 

Side by side with these more or less conservative schools 
of Protestant theology, there are Rationalistic schools whose 
principles may be traced back substantially to the work of 
the German critic, SEMLER (f 1791), entitled “ Essay on a 
Free Examination of the Canon.”* According to him the 
Canon is simply the list of books read in the ancient Church 
for the edification of the people, and the criterion of canon- 
icity consists in the practical utility to be derived from each 
book. Willingly would he have removed from the Canon 
the books of Esther, Judith, the Canticle of Canticles and 
the Apocalypse, because of their not coming up to his stand- 
ard of morality.” Since Semler, many Rationalists have 
given up all notion of a Canon, inasmuch as they look upon 
the Old Testament simply as the collection of the extant 
writings of the Jewish people, and have no manner of con- 
cern with the question: Whether this or that particular book 


1 Abhandlung von freien Untersuchung des Canon (1771-1775). 
BU Cire LOIsy wiloc, Gly Pues, 


86 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


of the Bible should be considered as authoritative in matters 
of faith and morals. Others who still speak of the Canon in 
exactly the same sense as Semler, judge of the canonical 
character of a book by the sublimity and purity of its doc- 
trinal and moral teachings, and express freely their regret 
that certain writings, as for instance, Ecclesiastes, should be 
kept in the Christian Canon. 

The position assumed by Rationalists is, of course, the 
farthest removed from revealed Catholic truth. It cannot 
be denied, however, that their independent investigation of 
the history of the Canon has led them many a time to pro- 
claim the untenableness of the Protestant theories and the 
soundness of the Catholic position as far as the data of his- 
tory are concerned.’ 


1 This is very particularly the case with the works on the Canon of Reuss and S. Dav- 
IDSON so often referred to in the foregoing pages. 


Sy NOP ols OPSCHAPTER TV, 


HIstoRY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


fF 


THE AGE OF 


THE NEW 4 ; 


TESTAMENT 
3 

WRITERS: 
(1 

Ge 

THE FIRST 

2 
THREE 
- CENTURIES: | 


III. 


FouRTH 
CENTURY TO 


OUR TIME: 


FROM THE | 
| 
| 
l 


Preaching, not writing, the ordinary method of 
spreading the Gospel. 


Yet inspired writings composed and diffused. 


. Traces of primitive collections. 


How they consider the writings of 


. The Apostolic | the New Testament. 


Books with which they seem ac, 


Fathers : {| quainted. 


. Testimony of the principal Apologists, and of we 


early Heretics. 


. Ecclesiastical writers of the West and of the East 


(Canon of Eusebius). 








Western Before the Council of Florence. 
Churches : The Council of Trent. 
astern Lack of unity in the fourth century 
Churches: The Trullan Council and after. 
Protestant Schools and confessions of the sia 
Ld es teenth and seventeenth centuries 
cae Orthodox and Rationalistic schools 
eee | of the nineteenth century. 


87 


CHAPTER IV. 
HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
§ 1. Zhe Age of the New Testament Writers. 


1. Preaching, not Writing, the Ordinary Method of 
spreading the Gospel. One of the leading features of the 
age of the New Testament writers consists in the fact that 
in their eyes, and in those of their Christian contemporaries, 
preaching, not writing, was the regular method of spreading 
the Gospel. Christ’s mission here below had been to preach 
“the Gospel of the kingdom of God,” * and this same mis- 
sion He had entrusted to His chosen disciples, saying: ‘“ As 
the Father hath sent Me, I also send you;”’ “going there- 
fore, teach ye all nations.”3 Conscious of their sublime 
mission, the Apostles considered it their supreme duty “to 
speak the things which they had seen and heard,” * and not 
to burden themselves with other occupations which, however 
useful, would interfere materially with “the ministry of the 
Word.” ® 

So was it also with the great Apostle of the Gentiles. 
Paul was called to the Apostolate for no other purpose than 
to preach the Gospel,’ and this was a most imperative duty 
in his eyes, for, says he: ‘“‘ Woe is unto me if I preach not 
the Gospel . . . for a dispensation is committed to me.’’’ 

1 Mark i, 14; Luke iv, 43. 

2 Johnixx ar 

= Matt. xxviii, 19; cfr. Acts i, 8. 

* Acts iv, 19, 203 x, 42. 

5 Acts vi, 2, 4: 


& Acts ix, 15} xxil, 15%) Xxvil, 16, 27; Rom, 1,1; 1 Cor. i, 17, 
7 I Cor. ix, 16, 17. 


HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 89 


Further, it stands to reason that oral teaching, accom- 
panied “ with signs and wonders,” ' could alone implant the 
faith among illiterate men such as were the first converts 
generally.” In like manner, only oral teaching could truly 
preserve the Christian faith among them after they had 
embraced it;* and this is why we see the Apostles and their 
successors continuing to visit the churches they had 
founded,‘ or setting over them faithful men capable of keep- 
ing up the teaching of the Apostles after their departure.° 

Finally, ‘‘the numerous terms used in the New Testament 
to designate the teaching of the Apostles express, without ex- 
ception, the idea of oral instruction. Everywhere,’ the ques- 
tion is of speaking and hearing, of discourses and auditors, 
of preaching, proclamation and tradition, and never once of 
writing and reading, except where there is express allusion 
to the books of the Old Testament. And later, when the 
writings of the first disciples and missionaries came within 
the reach of persons who were literate, the latter could 
decidedly prefer the oral source for acquaintance with evan- 
gelical facts, because it was more abundant.” ’ 


2. Yet Inspired Writings Composed and Diffused. 
Although oral teaching was, in the age of the New Testa- 
ment writers, what it ever remained in the Church of God,’ 
viz., the ordinary means of spreading the Gospel, it was 
only natural that, during the same period, inspired writings 


I Thess. i, 5; Acts xv, 12; xix, 6, 11. 
I Cor. 1, 26; II Thess. iii, 11. 
II Thess. ii, 14. 
Acts xv, 36. 
Acts xiv, 21,22; I Tim. iii; I Cor. xvi, 15; II Tim. ii, 2; etc. 
Cfr. Rom. i, r; I Cor. iv, 15, etc.; Acts viii, 4, etc.; II Thessal. ii, 14; Ephes. vi, 
Togs lhessuly 1378 le Limit, tis) Gala ilinenssbetc., etc: 

7 Reuss, History of the Canon of Holy Scripture, p.19 (Eng. Trans].). Cfr. the words 
of PaprAs recorded by Eusgsius, Ecclesiastical History, Book iii, chap. xxxix. 

8 Cfr. St. IrmN#us, Against Heresies, Book iii, chaps. iii, iv; TERTULLIAN, on 
Prescription against Heretics, chap. xix; etc. 


ao ff 6 © 


go GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


should be composed for the use of the early Christians. 
One might naturally expect, for instance, that the ardent 
zeal of St. Paul should urge him to send letters to his recent 
converts, either to encourage them in their faith, or to warn 
them against perverse teachers, or to correct false notions, 
or to condemn nascent abuses, etc. It was only natural, 
too, that while the principal deeds and teachings of Jesus 
were recounted by the first preachers of Christianity, literate 
believers should be desirous to possess written records of the 
same, and that such Gospels as our Synoptic Gospels should 
be gradually composed.’ 

Of these various writings, the Epistles of St. Paul, at least 
those which were directed to particular churches, were in 
the best position for acquiring at once authority and for 
being rapidly disseminated. The heads of the churches 
caused them to be read publicly to the faithful, who were 
thereby officially apprised of their genuineness, and were, no 
doubt, allowed to secure copies of them. Further, these 
same officials communicated such epistles most willingly to 
the neighboring communities, either because they belonged 
to the same province, or because the Apostle had expressed 
his desire that they should do so. ‘Thus were all possible 
misgivings concerning their genuineness prevented; thus 
also was their circulation started without delay. 

‘The other inspired writings of this period, such as our 
canonical Gospels, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Catholic 
Epistles, etc., were apparently composed for a less definite 
circle of readers, and hence they had probably to overcome 
greater obstacles to their reception and diffusion. It is likely 
enough, however, that the contents of our Gospels, together 
with the reverence which the early Christians had for the 


1 The questions connected with the Origin, Date, Authorship, etc., of the Gospels and 
of the other New Testament writings, will be dealt with in our forthcoming volume on 
Introduction to the New Testament. 


HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. gi 


authors whose names they bear, secured to these sketches of 
Christ’s life and teachings a fairly rapid and extensive circu- 
lation. In point of fact, a careful comparison of the text of 
our canonical Gospels leads to the two following conclu- 
sions: (1) the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark were 
most likely among the current records of Our Lord’s life, which 
St. Luke utilized in the composition of his own Gospel ;' 
(2) the first two Gospels—and perhaps all the three Synop- 
tists—were already known to the large circle of readers for 
whom our fourth Gospel was written. 

In connection with the Catholic Epistles, it is supposed 
that the resemblances between the Epistle to the Romans 
and that of St. James, between the Epistle of St. Jude and 
the second Epistle of St. Peter, point also to their com- 
paratively rapid diffusion.’ 





3. Traces of Primitive Collections. If we bear in 
mind the principal circumstances in the midst of which the 
writings of the Ncw Testament were at first circulated, we 
shall find it easy to understand why no general collection of 
these inspired books was made during the Apostolic Age. 
Not only were these writings composed at different times 
and dispersed to widely different places, but they were cir- 
culated while a collection of sacred books, viz., those of the 
Old Testament, was already in possession of the field. As 
long as this first collection, coupled with the Apostolic oral 
teaching still fresh in the memory of the faithful, would 
appear a sufficient rule of faith and morals, it was not likely 
that a second collection of inspired writings should be de- 
sired. Again, throughout the Apostolic Age, there was a 
prevalent expectation of the speedy return of the Lord, and 
this would naturally preclude the wish for a second collec- 


1 Luke i, 1-3. 
2 Cfr, Loisy, Histoire du Canon du Nouveau Testament, pp. 10=14, 


g2 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


tion of sacred writings. Nor was there as yet such con- 
siderable development of heretical tendencies as to make the 
orthodox leaders and people realize—as it happened later 
on—the importance of collecting all the sacred books which 
had been left to the Christian Church by her first teachers, 
and which on that account could be turned to the best 
advantage against dangerous innovators. ' 

But while these and other circumstances of the time’ were 
unfavorable to the formation of a complete Canon of the 
Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, divine Providence 
was watching over'its various elements and preparing the 
way for their final gathering into one body of writings no 
less authoritative than those of the Old Testament. This 
providential means consisted in the partial collections which 
individual churches were able to make of writings directly 
addressed to them, or communicated by the neighboring 
Christian communities, or reaching them through visiting 
missionaries. All such collections were, of course, prized 
very highly and preserved carefully; they also formed so 
many distinct units whose genuineness could generally be 
shown, so that they were truly ready to enter as integral 
parts into the full Canon of the New Testament. 

The formation of these partial collections was so natural 
under the circumstances of the time, that all scholars grant 
it must have taken place, although only one trace—and even 
one which is not absolutely clear—of such a collection 
occurs in the whole New Testament.3 The variations which 
existed for a long time between the Canon of the New 
Testament as admitted by the various churches, seem also 
to point to collections which were incomplete from the out- 


1 For details in connection with this point, see Reuss, History of the Sacred Scrip- 
tures of the New Testament, vol. ii, §§ 281-285 (Engl. Transl.). 

2 Such as, for instance, the divisions between Jewish and Gentile converts, the fall of 
Jerusalem and ruin of its Temple, etc. 

3 II Peter iii, 15, 16. Cfr. Luisy, Histoire du Canon du Nouveau Testament, p. 12. 


HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 93 


set. As the primitive collections contained only a limited 
number of the sacred writings, and these not always the 
same, it was only natural that dcubts should arise later re- 
garding the authorship and, consequently also, regarding 
the inspiration cf some one or other of the New Testament 
writings. In point of fact, several books, viz., the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, the Epistle of St. James, the second Epistle 
of St. Peter, the second and third Epistles of St. John, the 
Epistle of St. Jude and the Apocalypse, were the object of 
considerable doubts during the following centuries, and on 
that account they are usually called by Catholics the 
deutero-canonical books of the New Testament.’ 


§ 2. The First Three Centuries. 


1. The Apostolic Fathers. (Between go and 130 
A.D.) One of the most important facts connected with 
the early transmission of the writings of the New Testa- 
ment consists in the line of separation which the Apostolic 
Fathers draw between their own writings and those of the 
founders of the Christian Church. Not only do they recognize 
the latter as issuing from men invested with a dignity much 
higher than their own, but they even seem to consider all such 
writings as in no sense inferior to the sacred books of the Old 
Testament. This is probably the case with St. CLEMENT 
of Rome (f 100 A.D.), who confirms his own words to the 
Corinthians by appealing to “the Epistle of the blessed 
Apostle Paul,” which he wrote to them “ under the guidance 
of the Holy Spirit” (zvevparexds).” Thus is it also with 
St. Icnatius, Martyr (f 107 a.D.), who seems to place the 
authority of the Apostles even above that of the prophets of 


1 A few passages of St. Mark (xvi, 9-20), St. Luke (xxii, 43, 44), and St. John (vii, 53- 
viii, 11), are also deutero-canonical. 
21 Epist. to the Corinthians, chap. xlvii. 


94 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


old;' with the writer of the Epistle usually ascribed to St. 
BARNABAS, who quotes a passage from St. Matthew with the 


99 2 


solemn scriptural formula, “as it is written ; and finally, 
with St. Potycarp, who says that “neither he, nor any other 
like him, can come up to the wisdom of the blessed and 
glorified’ Paul,” and who, after referring to his readers as 
men “versed in the Sacred Scriptures,” affirms that ‘it is 
declared in these Scriptures: ‘Be ye angry and sin not,’ 
(Ps. iv, 5), and ‘let not the sun go down upon your wrath,’ ” 
(Ephes. iv, 26).° 

In view of the supreme authority ascribed by these and 
other Apostolic Fathers to the literary productions of the 
founders of Christianity, the question of determining the 
books of the New Testament with which early Church writ- 
ers show themselves acquainted, assumes a special impor- 
tance. But although this topic has attracted much the 
attention of recent scholars, considerable uncertainty still 
prevails concerning it,’ chiefly because, while the Apostolic 
Fathers seem to use this or that particular book of the New 
Testament, they do not refer to it by name, nor cite its 
words strictly. We think, however, that when the whole 
evidence which has come down to us from the time of the 
Apostolic Fathers’ is carefully examined, it bears out the 
following conclusions : 

(1) By the year 130 a.D., our four canonical Gospels 
were extensively circulated, and formed so well defined a 
collection that at no later date do we find any doubt among 


1 Epist. to the Philadelphians, chap. v; cfr. also Epist. to the Smyrnzans, chaps. vy, 
vii, and Epist. to the Romans, chap. iv. 

2 Epist. of St. Barnabas, chap. iv. 

3 Epist. to the Philadelphians, chaps. iii, xii. 

4 Cfr. SANDAY, Inspiration, Lectures vi, vii. : 

5 In this connection, the evidence includes several other ecclesiastical writings, such 
as the Shepherd of Hermas, the so-called second Epistle of St. Clement, The Teach- 
ing of the Apostles, the Preaching and Apocalypse of Peter, etc., and also the testimony 
of the Gnostic Basilides and of his son, Isidore. 


HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 95 


ecclesiastical writers regarding the precise number of the 
Gospels received by the Church; (2) in the first quarter of 
the second century, the Epistles of St. Paul are not only 
well known in the great Christian centres of the Roman 
world, but some expressions of St. Clement and St. Polycarp 
seem to imply that a general collection of St. Paul’s Epistles 
had already been made; (3) it is not unlikely that in those 
early days the Acts of the Apostles andthe Epistles of St. 
John were usually received together with the Gospels of St. 
Luke-and of St. John, respectively ; (4) finally, the Epistle 
to the Hebrews was considered in Alexandria as the gen- 
uine work of St. Paul, and if we except the second Epistle 
of St. Peter, the Epistle of St. James, and especially that of 
St. Jude, all our canonical writings of the New Testament 
were clearly known to some one or other of the early 
churches.’ 


2. Testimony of the Principal Apologists and 
of the Early Heretics. As a powerful confirmation of 
the positions just assumed, we may adduce at once the tes- 
timony of the leading apologists, who followed closely on 
the time of the Apostolic Fathers. Foremost among them 
stands St. Justin (7 163 a.D.), whose apologetic works are 
the earliest extant, and whose testimony in favor of our 
canonical Gospels is most valuable. Towards the end of his 
first Apology he speaks of ‘the Memoirs composed by the 
Apostles, and which are called Gospels,” ”’ 
the meeting of the faithful “on the day called Sunday... 
the Memoirs of the Apostles or the writings of the prophets 
are read as long as time permits.®”’ 


and says that at 


In another work of 


1 For detailed information, see Lorsy, loc. cit., pp. 14-46, and SALtmon, Introduction 
to the New Testament, 8th edit., p. 359, sq. Fora different view, see DAvipson, Canon 
of the Bible; Reuss, History of the Sacred Scriptures of the New Testamer t, etc. 

2 First Apology, chap. Ixvi. 

3 Ibid, chap. lxvii. 


96 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


his, entitled Dzalogue with Trypho, we clearly see that these 
Memoirs or Gospels form already a well defined collection, 
inasmuch as not only the Christian apologist, but even his 
Jewish opponent, speak of them as “ ¢4Ze Gospel.’ In the 
same work, St. Justin says that the records of Christ’s life, 
to which he appeals repeatedly, “were drawn up by the 
Apostles and those who followed them:”’ expressions 
which apparently point to the very men to whom our canon- 
ical Gospels are ascribed, viz., St. Matthew and St. John, 
the Apostles of Jesus, and St. Mark and St. Luke, the imme- 
diate disciples of the Apostles. Finally, when the holy Doc- 
tor mentions words or deeds of Christ as drawn from “the 


4 


Memoirs,” from “the Memoirs of His Apostles,” etc., he 
has distinctly before his mind the words and deeds of Jesus 
as they are recorded in our canonical Gospels. It is plain, 
therefore, that our Gospels were well known to St. Justin,’ 


’ Dialogue with Trypho, chaps. x, c. 

2 Tbid, chap. cili. 

3 Rationalists grant that Justin knew the first and third of our canonical Gospels, 
They are divided as to his use of St. John’s Gospel, but every candid reader of St. 
Justin cannot help admitting that his expressions regarding the “ only begotten Son of 
the Father,” “‘ the Word,” ‘“‘ His having become flesh,” etc., imply his acquaintance with 
our fourth Gospel. They generally deny that the holy Doctor used the Gospel of St. 
Mark, and affirm that in one passage he refers to the Apocryphal Gospel of Peter for 
events which are recorded exclusively in our second Gospel. This passage reads as fol- 
lows: Kal To eimeiv peTavomaKévat avtov Ilétpov, eva Tov AmosToAwv, Kal yeypapOat ev 
TOLS ATOMVNMLOVEVLATLY AVTOD yeyerNMEVOY Kal TOUTO, META TOV Kai GAAOUS SVO adeApods, 
viovs ZeBedaiov ovras, peTwvosaKévat OvO“aTL TOV Boavepyes, 0 EaTLY Viol BpovTys K.T. X. 
(Dial. with Trypho, chap. cvi). Here the pronoun ovrtod refers either to Christ or to 
Peter. The probabilities are certainly in favor of its referring to Christ: yet, even 
supposing that we should refer it to Peterand render the “ Memoirs of him (Peter),” it 
does not follow necessarily that St. Justin speaks of the Apocryphal Gosfel of Peter, 
fragments of which have been recently published. The holy Doctor might still have in 
view the Gospel of St. Mark, since an old tradition describes Mark as the secretary of 
the prince of the Apostles. (Cfr. Papras in Evsesius, Ecclesiastical History, Book iii, 
chap. xxxix; see also Lotsy, loc. cit., p. 51; SALMON, Introduction to the New Tes- 
tament, Lect. VI). 

But further, it is far trom being proved that St. Justin was acquainted with the 
Apocryphal Gospel of Peter, still less that he would have used it in exactly the same 
manner as our canonical Gospels ; that apocryphal writing is a heretical work, and ite 
Docetic tenets are many a time in direct opposition to the orthodox expressions of St 


HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 97 


and even that some time before him they had been consid- 
ered as authoritative by the Christian Church, which read 
them in her public services alongside of the prophetical 
books of the Old Testament. . 

Of the other writings of the New Testament, the Apoc- 
alypse is the only one about which St. Justin gives distinct 
information,’ but it is beyond doubt that he used the Epistles 
of St. Paul, and indeed all the other canonical books except 
the Epistle of St. Jude, the second Epistle of St. Peter, the 
second and third Epistles of St. John.’ 

The testimony of St. Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth at the 
time of the martyrdom of St. Justin, is also very important 
in the history of the Canon of the New Testament. In a 
passage which has been preserved to us by Eusebius,’ the 
holy bishop complains of the falsification of his epistles, bnt 
consoles himself with the fact that the same is done to “the 
Scriptures of the Lord ” (tov zupraxdv ypaga-), that is to the 
writings of the New Testament, thus designated because 
forming a well-defined and sacred collection." 

The last Christian apologist to be mentioned here is St. 
THEOPHILUS of Antioch (about 180 A.D.) who, in his writ- 
ings, shows himself ‘“‘ familiar with the Gospels and most of 


Justin. (Cfr. chiefly G. SaLmon, Historical Introduction to the Study of the Books of 
the New Testament, 8th edit., pp. 581-589.) 

However all this may be, the now unquestionable fact that soon after St. Justin, his 
disciple, Tatian, framed a Diatessaron, or Evangelical Harmony, out of our four Gospels, 
implies that the holy Doctor was fully acquainted with our Gospels and admitted their 
authority. (Cfr. the English translation of Tatian’s work in yol.ix of the Ante-Nicene 
library of the Fathers, Amer. Edition.) 

1 Cfr Dialogue with Trypho, chap. Ixxxi, where St. Justinnames ‘‘ John, one of the 
Apostles of Christ ”’ as its author, and quotes its testimony together with that of the 
prophets of the Old Testament to prove that Christ will reign a thousand years in Jeru- 
salem before the final resurrection of the dead takes place. 

2 Cfr. Lorsy, loc. cit., p. 57, sq., and Westcott, Canon of the New Testament, 3d 
edit., p. 150, sq. 

3 Cfr Eusesius, Ecclesiastical History, Book iv, chap. xxiii. 

* This is admitted by critics belonging to very different schools, such as Westcott and 
S. Davidson, 


7 


98 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Paul’s epistles, as also the Apocalypse. He cites passages 
from Paul as ‘ the divine word’ (6 @ztvg Adyus), and ascribes 
the fourth Gospel to John, calling him an inspired man like 
the Old Testament prophets.”" We also learn from St. 
Jerome that he composed a harmony of the four Evangelists : 
gui guatuor Evangelistarum in unum opus dicta compin- 
gens, ingenti sui nobis monumenta reliquit.” 

Contemporary with these great champions of orthodoxy, 
whose testimony gives us the mind of the Christians within 
the pale of the Church, lived leaders of heresy whose extant 
writings, however fragmentary, bear witness to the fact that, 
without the Church, most of the books of the New Testa- 
ment were known, quoted and put on the same level as those 
of the Old Testament. Such is the case with BasILIpDEs 
who “ in the few pages of his extant writings refers certainly 
to the Gospels of Matthew, Luke and John and to the Epistles 
of St. Paul to the Romans, Corinthians, Ephesians and 
Colossians, possibly also to the first Epistle to Timothy.” * So 
is it also with VALENTINUS who cites the Epistle to the 
Ephesians as “ Scripture ” and refers clearly to the Gospels 
of St. Matthew, St. Luke and St. John, to the Epistles to the 
Romans and the first to the Corinthians, perhaps also to the 
Epistle to the Hebrews and the first Epistle of St. John.* 
So is it finally with Marcron, the celebrated contemporary 
of St. Justin and of Valentinus. His canon was divided into 
two parts: “the Gospel” and “the Apostolicon.” The 
Gospel was that of St. Luke, but in an altered state; while 
the Apostolicon comprised ten Epistles of St. Paul, exclud- 
ing the Pastoral Epistles and that to the Hebrews. 

This concordant testimony of orthodox and _ heretical 


1S, Davipson, Canon of the Bible, 3d edit., p. 135. 

2 Miang, Patr. Lat., vol. 22, col. 1020. 

3 Westcor'r, Canon of the New Testament, p. 265, sq. 
* Westcott, ibid, p. 269. 


HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 99 


writers in the second century regarding the authoritative 
character of most of the books of the New Testament proves 
conclusively against Rationalists, that these sacred books 
must have enjoyed the same authoritative character a con- 
siderable time before both champions and opponents of 
orthodoxy had appeared. 


3. The Ecclesiastical Writers of the West and 
of the East. At the point where the age of the early 
apologists and heretics merges into that of the great eccle- 
siastical writers of the third and fourth centuries, we meet 
with a most valuable testimony to the contents of the Canon 
of the New Testament in a fragmentary list commonly 
known as the M/uratorian Canon. ‘This list, discovered in the 
Ambrosian library at Milan, by Muratori (hence its name) in 
1740, was made towards the end of the second century (about 
170 A.D.), and gives us the mind of the Ryman Church at 
that early date. As the beginning of the Canon of Muratori 
is torn, it now opens with a broken sentence, which evidently 
refers to the position of St. Mark’s Gospel.’ The writer speaks 
next of the Gospels of St. Luke and St. John as the third 
and fourth Gospels, so that he knew of our four Gospels. 
He ascribes the book of the Acts to St. Luke, enumerates 
thirteen Epistles of St. Paul, mentions the Epistle of St. 
Jude, the Epistles of St. John,’ and refers apparently to two 
Apocalypses, the one of St. John and the other of St. Peter, 
this latter “(as not universally received,” but more probably 
to only one Apocalypse, that of St. John and to two Epistles 


1 The text of the Muratorian Canon may be found in Cornely, Loisy, Breen, Westcott, 
etc., opp. cit. 

2 The first Epistle of St. John, though not named explicitly, was admitted by the 
wtiter of the Canon, for he cites its first verse in connection with the authorship of the 
fourth Gospel (cfr. lines 26-34 of the Muratorian Canon), 


100 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


of St. Peter, the second of which he declares is ‘‘ not uni- 
versally received.” ’ 

It is impossible to peruse the Canon of Muratori without 
feeling that its “author speaks throughout of a received and 
general opinion, stating what was held to be certainly known, 
and appealing to the practice of ‘the Catholic Church.’ ”” 
In point of fact, the Epistle of St. James and the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, which he does not mention, and the second 
Epistle of St. Peter, to which he probably refers “as not uni- 
versally received,” are the very writings which we find at 
this time either unknown to or rejected by the churches of 
Gaul and North Africa, for there is no trace of them either 
in St. IrRENa&uS (f about 200 a.p.), the illustrious Bishop 
of Lyons, or in TERTULLIAN (f 220), the celebrated priest of 
Carthage.* 

But whilst Roman and Western writers seem to be opposed 
to the sacred character of these deutero-canonical Epistles, 
the tradition of the great church of Alexandria is in its 
favor. This is clear in the case of the Epistlé to the 
Hebrews, which CLement of Alexandria (the head of the 
Alexandrian school from 180 to 202, A.D.), and ORIGEN 
(Ff 254) ever reckon along with the other thirteen Epistles of 
St. Paul. This is also very probable in the case of the 
second Epistle of St. Peter and of the Epistle of St. James, fer 
Eusebius * tells us that in his work entitled AWypotyfoses, 
Clement of Alexandria “gave abridged accounts of all the 

1 The text of the Muratorian Canon, referring to this point, has certainly been altered. 
For reasons which it would be too long to detail here, the reading proposed by Zahn 
as the original one, viz., “ Apocalypsi etiam Joannis et Petri waz tantum recipimus 
epistolam: fertur etiam altera quam quidam ex nostris legi in ecclesia nolunt .. .” 
scems very probable. 

2 Wustcort, Canon of the New Testament, p. 199, sq. 

3 This agreement of the Western churches points probably to a similarly incomplete 
list of sacred books in the early Latin copies of the New Testament. 

‘ Ecclesiastical History, Book vi, chap. xiv; cfr. also Book iii, chap. xxv. The 


Hypotyposes of Clement of Alexandria are no longer extant, but were known to Photius 
(ninth century) who speaks of them in his Bibliotheca, chap. cix. 


HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Io!1 


canonical Scriptures, not even omitting those that are dis- 
puted (cas avthsyopevas), that is, the book of Jude and the 
other general Epistles ’’ (James, II Peter, If and III John). 
It is true that Origen, the most brilliant disciple and suc- 
cessor of Clement of Alexandria, mentions at times doubts in 
connection with them and numbers them among the disputed 
(du@iBarrAdbueva) books of the Canon of the New Testament. 
Yet it is highly probable that when he does so, he is not 
voicing the tradition of the Alexandrian church, but rather 
speaking as a teacher who knows that several writings,’ 
although received in Alexandria, are either questioned or 
rejected elsewhere. We even grant that since Origer used 
these expressions of distrust against several books of our 
Canon, he may be conceived of as having indorsed the 
doubts of past or present ecclesiastical writers. It remains 
true, however, that when he speaks the popular language of 
the time and simply conforms to the commonly received 
views of his church, he enumerates all the books of our 
present Canon without exception or restriction.’ 

The foregoing remarks concerning the attitude of Origen 
towards several books of the New Testament Canon apply 
also in some measure to EusEsius (f 340 A.D.), the erudite 
Bishop of Cesarea, in Palestine. In his “ecclesiastical History, 
composed about 325 4.p., he gives us valuable information as 
to the condition of the Canon in his time.* He distinguishes 
the books which claimed to be authoritative into Homologou- 
mena, or universally acknowledged books ; Antclegomena, or 
disputed books ; and /Vo¢ha, or spurious works. The first class 


1 Besides the second Epistle of St. Peter, and the Epistle of St. James, Origen men- 
tions the Epistle of St. Jude, the second and third Epistles of St. John, among the 
disputed writings. 

2 Cfr. especially his Homily on Josue vii, 1, where he distinctly mentions our four 
Gospels, two Epistles of Peter, the Epistles of James and Jude, the Epistles and Apoc- 
alypse of John, the Acts of the Apostles which he ascribes to St. Luke, and lastly, the 
fourteen Epistles of St. Paul. 

3 Cfr. especially Book! chap. xxv. 


TO2 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


comprises the four Gospels, the Acts, fourteen Epistles of Paul’ 
the first of John, the first of Peter, and finally the Apocalypse 
with the qualification etye gavety “if it be thought right.” 
In the second class, Eusebius includes expressly first “ dis- 
puted books which are recognized by most ecclesiastical 
authors,” viz., the Epistle of James, the Epistle of Jude, the 
second of Peter, and the second and third of John; and 
secondly and less formally, books having a more restricted 
currency among Catholics, such as the Acts of Paul, the 
Pastor, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, 
the Teachings of the Apostles, “and finally, e?ve gavety, the 
Apocalypse of John, which some reject, but others rank 
among the Homologoumena.” The third class comprises 
“the spurious writings which are to be rejected as altogether 
absurd and impious,” “and which circulate only among 
heretics,” viz., the Gospels of Peter, of Thomas, of Matthias, 
etc., the Acts of Andrew, of John, and of other Apostles.’ 
Such is in substance the testimony of Eusebius concerning 
the state of the New Testament Canon at the end of the 
third century and the beginning of the fourth century of our 
era. It clearly shows that, since the time of Origen, the 
question of the genuineness of the deutero-canonical books 
had made no advance in the Eastern churches, inasmuchas the 
books qualified at times as disputed by the great Doctor of 
Alexandria are still spoken of as such by the Bishop of 
Cesarea. Nay more, it seems to prove that the doubts 
regarding the genuineness of the Apocalypse of St. John 


1 Tn his Ecclesiastical History (Book ili, chap. 1ii), Euszprius says that *‘ the Epistles 
of Paul are fourteen, all well known and beyond doubt. It should not, however, be 
concealed, that some have set aside the Epistle to the Hebrews, saying that it was dis- 
puted in the Church of Rome as not being one of St. Paul’s Epistles.” 

2 Beside the books of which Eusebius speaks as “disputed,’”’ there are two deutero- 
canonical fragments (Mark xvi, 9-20 and John vii, 53—viii, 11) regarding the genuineness 
of which he records serious doubts. In point of fact these two fragments are omitted in 
the Vaticanus and Sinatticus, the only extant Greek codices of the New Testament 
which go back to the fourth century of our era. 


HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 103 


which made their appearance in Rome at the beginning of 
the third century had gradually attracted the attention of the 
learned world. At the same time, the very expressions used 
by Eusebius prove that all these deutero-canonical writings 
however “disputed” they might still be in theory, were 
acknowledged as inspired by most ecclesiastical authors, and 
freely circulated among Catholics. As a matter of fact, our 
entire Canon of the New Testament is found in the Sinazticus, 
a Greek codex of the fourth century, and was also probably 
found originally in the Vaticanus (also of the fourth century), 
in which the latter part of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the 
Pastoral Epistles and the Apocalypse are wanting because 
of mutilation, the manuscript breaking off at Hebr. ix, 14, in 
the middle of the word zaéapret.’ 


§ 3. Lrom the Fourth Century to our Time. 


1. The Canon of the New Testament in the 
Western Churches. The history of the Canon of the 
New Testament in the Western churches between the fourth 
century and the Council.of Florence (middle of the fifteenth 
century) exhibits but few features worthy of notice, The 
first, and indeed the most important of these features, con. 
sists in the influence which Eastern views regarding the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, the second Epistle of St. Peter, and 
the Epistle of St. James exercised upon leading Fathers and 
writers of the West at the beginning of this long period. It 
is directly owing to the influence of Origen, that St. Hitary 
of Poitiers (ft 367) cites the second Epistle of St. Peter and 
the Epistle of St. James as “ Scripture ; ” and does the same 


1 Tt seems that in drawing his list of acknowledged books Eusgsius made little or no 
account of the Pesztto or Syriac Version which since the latter part of the second century 
contained all the books of the New Testament except the second and third Epistles of 
John, the second of Peter, the Epistle of Jude and the Apocalypse. (Cfr. Jas. HASTINGS, 
Bib. Dict., art. Bible.) 


104 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


for the Epistle to the Hebrews, which he ascribes to St. Paul.* 
St. PHiLastrius (f 387), Bishop of Brescia in North Italy 
exhibits also distinct traces of Oriental influence,’ whilst 
RUFINUS (f 410), priest of Aquileia, accepts in its fulness our 
present Canon because he finds it so framed by the illustrious 
Bishop of Alexandria, St. ATHANASIUS ({f 373). It was 
therefore because of their acquaintance with the ancient 
tradition of the East that the Western churches were induced 
to admit into their Canon of the New Testament the few 
deutero-canonical Epistles still missing in their collection.® 

A second feature to be noticed in the history of the Canon 
of the New Testament during this period consists in the 
rapidity with which the newly completed Canon was adopted 
wherever Latin was spoken. It is this full Canon which 
was received in Spain about 375 A.D., aS we infer from the 
homilies of the heretical Bishop of Avila, PRISCILLIAN (Tf 385), 
which have been recently published. It is this full Canon 
which three Councils—those of Hippo in 393, and of Car- 
thage in 397 and 419,—held during the lifetime and under the 
personal influence of St. AUGUSTINE (fF 430), approved of 
for the African churches. It is this same complete list that 
the best Latin biblical scholar of the Church, St. JEROME 
(t 420) accepted as his own, especially in his letter to Pauli- 
nus, and in his catalogue of ecclesiastical writers, extracts 
of which formed the well-nigh necessary accompaniment of 
the Latin copies of the Bible during the following centuries. 
Finally, it is this full Canon which Pope St. Innocent’ I 
sent in 405 to St. Exsuperius, Bishop of Toulouse in South- 


1 Cfr. De Trinitate, lib. i, 18; lib. iv, 8; lib. iv, 11 (Patr. Lat., vol. x). 

* Cfr. Lotsy, Canon du Nouveau Testament, p. 186, sqq. 

3 Even the list of TH. MOMMSEN (359? A.D.) bears traces of this Eastern influence, 
although it omits the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of James and notes doubts 
concerning the second of Peter, the second and third of John (cfr. Vicourovux, Diction- 
naire de la Bible, art. Canon. p. 176; Briccs, General Introduction to the Study of 
Holy Scripture, p. 138; SANDAY, Inspiration, p. 455). 


HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 105 


arn Gaul, who had consulted the head of the oman Church 
about “the books admitted in the Canon.”‘ Thus was it 
that our Canon of the New Testament, supported so power- 
fully and in so many different ways, ‘“ soon gained universal 
acceptance wherever Latin was spoken.” It was received 
not only in Italy and Africa but also “in Gaul and Spain, 
and even in Britain and Ireland.” * 

A third and last feature to be mentioned here, is the con- 
stant firmness with which the Western churches adhered to 
the full Canon throughout the Middle Ages. All the Latin 
manuscripts of this period, whatever their origin (Italian, 
French, Spanish, Irish, etc.), contain all the books of the 
New Testament; and all the commentators, theologians, 
canonists, correctors of the Bible, and ecclesiastical writers 
of any other description, know of and receive explicitly all 
these sacred books. It is true that several manuscripts of 
the time, such as the /i/densis (written in 546), the Cavensis 
and the Zoletanus (eighth century), etc., contain the apocry- 
phal Epistle of St. Paul to the Laodiceans. But it should 
be remembered that though considered by several Latin 
writers of the period, among whom St. GREGORY THE 
Great (f 604), the Anglo-Saxon Abbot ALFrRipD (tenth ce>- 
tury) and Joun of Salisbury (f 1180), as the genuine work 
of St. Paul, this Epistle was not regarded as canonical. It 
is true also that here and there, as, for instance, in St. 
IstpoRE of Seville (636), and Haymo of MHalberstadt 
(t 856),a few traces of the old doubts can still be found, but 
they bespeak ‘‘a display of erudition rather than attempts 
at criticism: 3 during the Middle Ages, the Canon of the 
New Testament was no longer a problem to be solved, 


1 Cfr. Micne, Lat. Patrol., vol. xx, cols. 501, 502. 

2 Westcott, Canon of N. Test., p. 423. 

3 Westcott, ibid. For details concerning the history of the Canon of the New Tes- 
tament during the Middle Ages, cfr. Lorsy, Histoire du Canon du Nouv. Test., pp. 
214-226; Reuss, History of the Sacred Scriptures of the New Testament, § 328, sq. 


106 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


but a firm and universally accepted tradition in the Western 
churches. | 

It is not surprising therefore to find Pope Eucrenius IV 
declaring solemnly with the approval of the Council of 
Florence (Feb. 4, 1442), that the holy Roman Church ad- 
mits as equally inspired with the books of the Old Testa- 
ment, all those of the New which are enumérated without 
the least distinction between proto- and deutero-canonical 
writings.’ Nor is it surprising to notice, on the other hand, 
that, speaking as erudite humanists, such men as ERASMUS 
(t 1536) and Card. CajETAn (f 1534), mentioned again the 
old doubts concerning the deutero-canonical books of the 
New ‘Testament.” We can hardly doubt, however, that 
whilst not denying positively the divinely-inspired character 
of these books, the bold expressions of these writers, espe- 
‘cially those of Cajetan, must have seemed at the time, if not 
an indorsement, at least a too favorable appreciation of the 
wrong views of the early reformers, which the Church soon 
condemned formally in the Council of Trent. 

If we set aside all the questions agitated by the Fathers 
of Trent, which either have no direct bearing on the holy 
writings of the New Testament, or have already been suffi- 
ciently examined in connection with the History of the 
Canon of the Old Testament, we shall find that the discus- 
sions of the Council referred chiefly to the three following 
points: (1) the canonicity of several books rejected by her- 
etics, especially by Luther ; (2) the canonicity of the deutero- 
canonical parts controverted even among Catholics; (3) the 
genuineness of the sacred books, because of its intimate 
connection with their inspired character. ‘The first of these 


1 Cfr. Lasse, Acta Conciliorum, vol. ix, col. 1023, sq. 

» Cfr. Lotsy, loc, cit., p. 226. sqq. It seems also that Cajetan rejected the authority 
of the deutero-canonical passages of St. Mark (xvi, 9-20), St. John (vii, 53—Vviii, 11) and 
St. Luke (xxii, 43, 44). 


HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 107 


points was soon agreed upon, for the Fathers had no other 
aim but to re-promulgate and sanction definitively the tradi- 
tion of past ages in regard to the sacred writings of the New 
Testament, and this tradition was in their eyes absolutely 
favorable to the canonical character of all the books which 
were then contained in the Latin Vulgate. On the second 
point, the Fathers of the Council were much more divided. 
Apparently, they did not care to define questions still con- 
troverted among Catholics, and although “ they thought that, 
at some future time, a special decree concerning the canon- 
icity of the fragments of the Gospels could be framed,” ! 
they preferred to follow the example of the Council of Flor- 
ence which had made no difference between the proto- and 
the deutero-canonical parts ; a majority of two-thirds decided 
that in the decree on the reception of the Gospels, a distinct 
mention of these fragments should not be made.’ The third 
point which bore on the genuineness of the sacred books 
had a special importance at the time of its discussion, when 
in the eyes of all—Catholics and Protestants alike—the in- 
spiration of a book ascribed to an Apostolic writer was most 
intimately bound up-with its authenticity. This is why, 
although the Fathers never intended to define this authen- 
ticity of the canonical books, yet they insisted that the names 
of the authors to whom they were ascribed by tradition 
should be inserted in the enumeration of writings declared 
‘sacred and canonical ” by the Council.’ 


1 Cfr. THEINER, Acta Genuina Concilii Tridentini, vol. i, p. 71. 

2 Cfr, THerngR, ibid., p.77.. The proposed wording of the decree was apparently: 
‘* Si quis autem libros sacros, prout in ecclesia leguntur, pro sacris et canonicis non sus- 
ceperit. . . . A. S.,” but as the Cardinal of ‘rent remarked, this wording, if applied to 
the Gospels, would seem to affirm “ ut ne totum quidem evangelium recipere videamur, 
quoniam non omnes evangelii partes in ecclesia leguntur.”’ The formula was therefore 
altered, and the final wording of the decree reads: “ Si quis libros svtegros, cum omnibus 
suis partibus, prout in Ecclesia catholica legi consueverunt et 7m illa veteri Latina 
Vulgata editione habentur....’? (THEINER, p. 84). 

3 The theological bearing of this insertion is closely examined by Lorsy, Canon du 
Nouveau Testament, p. 250, sqq. 


108 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


2. The Canon of the New Testament in the 
Eastern Churches. In adopting a Canon which included 
without the least distinction as regards inspiration and gen- 
uineness both the proto- and deutero-canonical writings of 
the New Testament, the Fathers of Trent simply conformed 
to what had been for long centuries the firm tradition not 
only of the Western but also of the Eastern churches. It 
is true that these latter churches betray some lack of unity 
concerning the Canon during the fourth century, as may be 
seen from the fact that while the Alexandrian writers St. 
ATHANASIUS (Festal Epistle of 367 a.p.) and St. Cyrit of 
Alexandria (f 444) use the full Canon, the Fathers of Pales- 
tine and Asia Minor—such as St. Cyrit of Jerusalem 
( f 386), St. GREGORY NaZIANZEN (Tf 389), St. AMPHILOCHIUS 
(f about 380), etc..—seem to reject the Apocalypse, and 
those of Antioch—such as St. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM ({407), 
THEODORET (7457 ?), APHRAATES (wrote about 340), etc.,— 
are opposed not only to the same book, but also to the deu- 
tero-canonical Epistles not found in the Peshitto. Further, 
it is difficult in the present day, to define at least in certain 
cases, how far the opposition of the East to some deutero- 
canonical writings was not merely theoretical, even during 
the fourth and fifth centuries of our era. Yet even admit- 
ting that this opposition went as far as a positive exclusion 
of one or several of these books,’ it remains none the less 
true that after a short lapse of time it had well-nigh alto- 
gether disappeared. Indeed, if we except Cosmas INpD1IcCo- 
PLEUSTES (535 A. D.) who excludes from his catalogue the 
Apocalypse and the seven Catholic Epistles, it may be said 
that, from the middle of the fifth century, all the writers of 


1 As is possibly the case with St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Cyril of Jerusalem and St. 
Gregory Nazianzen. Cfr. Vicouroux, Dictionnaire de la Bible, art. Canon, p. 175; 
Cuauvin, Legons d’Introduction Générale, p. 186, sq. 


HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 109 


Alexandria, Palestine and Asia Minor, Syria and Byzantium 
accept our full Canon without misgiving.’ | 

In view of these facts it is only natural to find that the 
Council 7 Zrudlo (692 A.D.) which enjoys so much authority 
in the East, approved solemnly of the complete Canon of 
St. Athanasius and the Latin Council of Carthage. In fact, 
had not the Trullan Council mentioned together with these 
authorities, such incomplete lists as that of the Council of 
Laodicea and the eighty-fifth Canon of the Apostles, traces 
of the old doubts would not have lingered in the writings of 
the Patriarch of Constantinople, NICEPHORUS (f 828), and of 
some Greek Canonists of the twelfth century.” However 
this may be, NICEPHORUS CALLISTUS (1330) declares expressly 
in his Ecclesiastical History, that the twenty-seven books of 
the New Testament have long been received without the least 
contest ‘by all the churches which are under the heavens,” ® 
and there is no doubt that ever since the churches of the 
East have ever agreed with the Western churches in admit- 
ting a Canon at once complete and pure.* 


3. The Canon of the New Testament in the 
Protestant Sects. It would be a waste of time to dwell 
here on the tests imagined by LUTHER (f 1546) and CALvIN 
(f 1564) to find out an essential difference between the books 
so long regarded as canonical by the East and the West. 
Their great principle, which was also that of the other early 
reformers, that independently of Church and tradition a 
book proves itself to the regenerated man as truly containing 


1 For details, see Loisy, Canon du Nouveau Testament, pp. 208-211. The admission 
of all the deutero-canonical books into the new Syriac Version of Bishop Philoxenus 
at the beginning of the sixth century, is particularly worthy of notice. The Nestorians 
still cling to the incomplete Canon of the school of Antioch. 

2 Cfr. Lorsy, ibid., and also Westcott, Canon of the New Testament, p. 416, sq. 

3 Cfr. Micnz, Patr. Greca, vol. cxiv, cols. 880-885. See also WESTCOTT, opere cit., 
footnote 4. 

4 Cfr, TrRocuon, Introduction Générale, p. 195. 


IIlI0 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


the Word of God and worthy to be numbered among the 
canonical Scriptures, was not applicable in practice and 
soon ceased to be—if it ever was—the real rule whereby 
Protestants determined the books which should make up the 
Canon of the New Testament.’ 

According to Luther, the head of the Saxon school, only four 
writings should be excluded from the Canon of the New Testa- 
ment, viz., (1) the Epistle to the Hebrews, which he regarded 
as ‘neither Paul’s nor an apostle’s;” (2) the Apocalypse, 
which he spoke of ‘tossing into the Elbe,” as “ neither 
apostolic nor prophetic ;”’ (3) the Epistle of James, which he 
pronounced unapostolic and “a right strawy epistle ;” (4) 
finally the Epistle of Jude which he declared spurious and use- 
less.” From this verdict of his master and during the very 
lifetime of Luther, BoDENSTEIN of Carlstadt (f 1541) differed 
in two important points: he rejected seven books (the usual 
deutero-canonical books) instead of four, and the ground of 
this rejection was the testimony of history instead of the 
dogmatic theory affirmed by Luther that the canonicity of a 
book depends on its teaching about Christ and man’s salva- 
tion. Other Lutherans of the sixteenth century, for instance 
Cuemnitz (f 1588) and Fracius Ittyricus (f 1575), thought 
it also necessary to take into account, much more than Luther 
had done, the data of history, and to put the deutero-ca- 
nonical books of the New Testament in a lower place than 
the others, chiefly because they had been a subject-matter of 
discussion in earlier ages. During the seventeenth century 
the Lutheran school showed itself less unfavorable to the 
three Epistles (I and II of John, II of Peter) whose genuine- 
ness had been admitted by its first founder, and “in the 


1 Cfr. chap. iii, § 3,/n. 1. See also Reuss, History of the Sacred Scriptures of the 
New Testament, vol. ii, § 339 (Engl. Transl.). 

2 The motives putforth by Luther may be found in Westcott, Canon of the New 
Testament, p. 449, sq.; Loisy, Canon du Nouveau Testament, p. 236, sq. 


HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. jE de 


course of time, 1ts members grew more and more familiar 
with the idea that the difference between the two classes of 
apostolic writings consisted at bottom only in the degree of 
certainty regarding their respective origin. . . . It was pre- 
ferred therefore to choose for classifying them terms that 
were quite inoffensive; e.g., canonical books of the first and 
second series, or of the first and second Canon.’ 

A very different reason, however, may have contributed 
powerfully to make the Lutherans careful not to insist too 
much on the supposed inferiority of the deutero-canonical 
books of the New Testament. They could not help noticing 
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the 
other schools of reformers (the Szvzss school under Zwingli, 
(Ecolampadius and even Calvin ;* the Arminian School un- 
der the leadership of Grotius (de Groot), and the Luglish 
Church with its first divines) never took any decisive stand 
against the seven Antilegomena.* All these schools settled 
their Canon of the New Testament more by usage than by 
deep historical research or by any dogmatic theory, and 
therefore they continued to value the full Canon of their 
ancestors. Nay more, the Bohemian Confession of Faith,* 
and to some extent the XXXIX Articles of the Anglican 
Church, appeal still to “ patristic tradition’ as a ground for 
their position regarding the Sacred Scriptures. Hence no 
school of reformers, the Lutheran not any more than the 
others, dared to incriminate the old Church for upholding a 
Canon of the New Testament which so many Protestant 
sects still preserved intact. Perhaps also may we refer to 


1 Reuss, History of the Canon of the Holy Scriptures, p. 369 (English Transl.). 

2 The only deutero-canonical books probably excluded by Calvin from the Canon are 
the second and third Epistles of John. 

3 For details, see Loisy, Westcott, Reuss, etc. 

4“ Docent Scripturas ss. que in bibliis continentur, et a patribus recepta auctorita- 
teque canonica donate sunt, pro veris habendas, etc.’ (Confess. Bohem. art.,1, quoted 
by Reuss, History of the New Testament, vol. ii, p. 342, Engl. Transl.). 


II12 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


this cause the rather singular fact that so few Confessions of 
the various reformed churches—four or five at most’—. give 
an explicit list of their sacred books of the New Testament : 
they were probably shy to commit themselves openly to a 
position which would have appeared both a condemnation of 
many Protestant sects, and an indorsement of the Catholic 
doctrine. 

However this may be, it is certain that at no time since 
the beginning of the Reformation, was the New Testament 
mutilated by the suppression of the deutero-canonical writ- 
ings. All along, these inspired books have had a place in 
the Bibles of all the Protestant sects, and it is only in the 
German editions of the sacred text that a trace may be 
found of a difference between the four books (Heb., Jas., 
Jude, Apocal.) rejected by Luther and the other books of the 
New Testament: these four writings occupy the last posi- 
tion in the printed editions, as if to suggest their inferior 
character. 

The complete Canon thus ratified during the first cen- 
turies of the Reformation has been maintained without the 
least alteration in practice in the more or less Orthodox 
schools of the nineteenth century, and whatever the views of 
their individual scholars regarding the genuineness or even 
the divine character of this or that particular book, the 
recasting of the Canon of the New Testament is not even 
dreamed of among them.* These schools of Protestant 
thought prefer to look upon the question as substantially 
well settled in the past, and to leave it in the statu quo, 
rather than to tackle what they consider a very difficult 


1 The only four commonly mentioned are the Gallican and Belgic Articles, the 
Westminster Confession and the /rzsk Articles : they all contain a full Canon of the 
New Testament (Cfr. ScHarr, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. iii). 

2 Scholars of évery denomination shared in the Revision of the Authorized Version of 
the New Testament, and 1t does not appear that any difference of views as regards the 
contents of the Canon of the New Testament ever showed itself among them. 


HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Il3 


problem and a probable source of further divisions in the 
Protestant churches.’ 

Side by side with these more or less conservative schools 
of Protestant theology, there are Rationalistic schools, 
whose principles may be traced back chiefly to the work of 
the German critic, SEMLER (f 1791), entitled, ‘“ Essay on a 
Free Examination of the Canon.” His general views, as 
well as those of his followers, have been already sum- 
marized in connection with the History of the Canon of the 
Old Testament, and hence there remains here only to add a 
few words about the famous TUBINGEN school and the reaction 
which has set in against its principles and conclusions. 

The founder and central figure of the modern Tibingen 
school was Ferdinand Christian Baur (} 1860), who main- 
tained that the peculiar doctrinal contents of each writing 
give the key to its origin. According to him, the Christian 
religion emerged slowly from the strife and gradual recon- 
ciliation of two opposite parties, the one Jewish, claiming 
Peter as its head, the other Gentile, having Paul for its 
chief leader; the one contending that the Jewish law and 
customs should be imposed upon Gentile converts, the 
other affirming that all, such believers should not be 
bound to the Mosaic rite of circumcision, and to all that it 
implied.” ‘ The history of Christianity from the Apostolic 
Age to the middle of the second century was the history of 
this controversy in its various stages of (1) unmitigated 
antagonism between the two opposite tendencies ; (2) incip- 
ient and progressive reconciliation ; (3) consummated recon- 
ciliation and completed union and unity. The books of the 
New Testament all relate to one or other of these stages, 
and their dates may be approximately fixed by the tenden- 


1Cfr James Hastincs, Bible Dictionary, art. Bible, p. 291, sq.; see, also, Reuss, 
History of the New Testament, vol. ii, p. 360 (Engl. Transl.). 
2 Cfr Outlines of New Testament History, p. 267, sqq. 


114 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


cies they respectively represent. A book which belongs to 
the first stage, and advocates either pure Paulinism or a 
purely Judaistic view of Christianity, is therefore early and 
apostolic; on the other hand, a book which belongs to the 
final stage and presents a view of Christianity rising en- 
tirely above antagonisms, must be of late date, and cannot 
have had an apostle for its author.” ' 

Applying this test to the contents of the books of the New 
Testament, Baur finds that only five writings have a right 
to be considered as undoubtedly genuine. These are: 
Rom., I, II Cor., Galat., which strenuously advocate pure 
Paulinism, and the Apocalypse, which, on the contrary, takes 
a purely Judaistic view of Christianity. Many of the other 
books are at best doubtful, and some of them belong unques- 
tionably to the second century. 

Such is in substance the theory of Baur and its many 
followers, Zeller, Schwegler, K6stlin, Ritschl, Bruno Bauer, 
etc. It practically amounted to a denial of the Canon, 
since ‘it allowed the greater number of its constituent 
parts to be lost in the stream of the history of doctrine 
along with other works of a very different character.”? 
It was therefore vigorously combated by Rationalistic critics 
of various schools,? who justly pointed out, among other 
things, “its failure to recognize the germs of organization 
even in the earliest Jewish Christianity, and their power; 
its assumption, never yet justified, of so very late date for 
most of the New Testament writings; its rashness of judg- 
ment by which the genuineness of many of them is denied, — 
often sacrificed rather to the logic of the system than to 
sufficient proof,” etc.‘ Yet it must be granted that many 

1 Bruce, Apologetics, Book iii, chap. vii. 

2 B. Wetss, A Manual of Introduction to the New Testament, p. 15 (Engl. Transl.). 


3 Cfr. B. WEISss, ibid, 
4 Reuss, History of the Sacred Scriptures of the New Testament, vol. ii, p. 359, 


(Eng. Transl.). 


HISTORY OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Irs 


results of the Tiibingen criticism, as well as the whole 
method of its investigation, and many of its premises, have 
been widely spread among the modern critical schools. 

Of late, however, Prof. Adolph Harnack, in the first part 
of his Chronologie (published in 1897), seems to give up 
the very fundamental position of Baur and other Rationalistic 
scholars. He frankly recognizes that “in the criticism of 
the sources of primitive Christianity, we are, without doubt, 
embarked on a retrograde movement towards tradition,” 
and affirms that “the chronological framework in which 
tradition has arranged the documents from the Pauline 
Epistles down to Irenzus, is in all main points right, and 
compels the historian to disregard all hypotheses in refer- 
ence to the historical sequence of things which deny this 
framework.” Of course these expressions of the German 
professor should not be taken too literally, for Harnack 
himself departs freely enough in connection with some 
canonical books from the beaten track of tradition.’ But it 
cannot be denied that, while speaking of Baur with respect, 
he sets aside Baur’s favorite positions, and discredits his 
method as one that started with certain assumptions regard- 
ing the existence and work of certain operative elements in 
primitive Christianity and the early Church, and made the 
writings conform to these. The whole style of criticism, 
moreover, that has derived more or less from Baur, that is 
ruled by the idea of “tendency,” receives here a stroke 
that should be fatal. It has had its day, according to Prof. 
Harnack, and has failed.’ 

Of course, the words of censure of the brilliant professor 
of Berlin, reach directly the unscientific method of the 


1 Cfr. his chronological table of events and literature connected with Christianity in 


‘The Biblical World, May, 1897. 
2S. D.F. Satmonp, Harnack’s Geschichte der Altchristlichen Literatur bis Rusebius 


in The Critical Review, Oct., 1897, p. 398. 


116 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


founder of the Tiibingen school, but there is no doubt that 
they are also indirectly a condemnation of the no less unscien- 
tific methods resorted to by the founders of the Reforma- 
tion, while they are a vindication of the principle by which 
the Church of God ever judged of the apostolic and 
canonical origin of the books of the New Testament. 


Sen) lo eee PEA Ps Ra), 


Tuer APOCRYPHAL OR UNCANONICAL BROOKS OF THE OULD 
TESTAMENT. 


Name and Importance of these Books. 


I The Prayer of Manasses. 
MVaeHY Pitts Third Book oo as canonical by many ec- 
j clesiastical writers. 
ENT REN of Esdras: ) Its elements almost entirely canonical. 
Pintions: Fourth Book of Esdras (contents, authorship and 
date of composition). ; 
Psalm 151st ascribed to David. 
APOCRYPHALS | The Psalter of Solomon (contents, date and author- 
IN GREEK pub): 
TArrione: EM tye third and fourth books of the Machabees. 
LEE 
ApocrypHats | 1: Names of these apocryphal books. By whom 


quoted? 


IED as Cited as Holy Scripture by several 


2. The Book ecclesiastical writers. 


NEW Nature and contents. 
Teen of Enoch: | Influence upon the writings of the 
New Testament. 
WRITERS: 


117 


CHAPTER Ve 


THE APOCRYPHAL OR UNCANONICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD 
TESTAMENT. 


Name and Importance of these Books. Beside 
the books of the Old and New Testament which the Church 
of God regards as sacred and inspired, there is a whole lit- 
erature made up of works which are commonly called Afoc- 
ryphal.. As might naturally be expected, this name has 
been understood differently in different ages;* but in the 
present day, as indeed for several centuries, it is usually 
applied to books whose claims to canonicity are not rec- 
ognized by the Church. It is in this sense that Protestants 
call “ apocryphal” our deutero-canonical books of the Old 
Testament ;* but as we saw in the foregoing chapters, these 
books have a strict right, even on purely historical grounds, 
to be considered as canonical. : 

Of course, the importance attached to this Apocryphal or 
Uncanonical literature has greatly varied through centuries. 
By most of the early writers of the Church, because of its 
containing “things contrary to faith or otherwise objection- 
able” ‘ it was considered as dangerous and worthy only of | 
anathema. Others,’ however, whilst not approving of its in- 

1 'Aroxpudos, hidden. 
2 Cfr. TRocuon, Introduction Générale, p. 471; Jas. Hastincs, Bible Dictionary, 


art. Apocrypha. 
3 They usually call them the Apocrypha, after the manner of St. Jerome and other 


Latin writers. 
4 Cfr. Or1IGEN, in Cant. Cantic. prologus. 
5 Or1GEN, for instance,in Matth. His words are quoted in Vicouroux, Dictionnaire 


de la Bible, art. A pocryphes, p. 767. 
118 


THE UNCANONICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 11g 


discriminate use, thought that real advantages might be 
derived from a careful perusal of its contents, and this is 
unquestionably the prevalent view of scholars in our cen- 
tury. Inthe present day the apocryphal books are studied 
attentively by the biblical interpreter, who hopes to find in 
them facts or expressions which throw light on obscure pas- 
sages of the canonical writings; by the student of history, 
who seeks to discover in them the impress of the ideas and 
anticipations of the period in which they appeared or which 
they describe; by the apologetic writer, who compares their 
contents with those of the canonical books, and is thereby 
enabled to show the incomparable superiority of the latter, 
etc. In view of this manifold interest, and also in order to 
complete our study of the Canon, we shall speak briefly of 
the principal apocryphal writings of the Old and of the New 
Testament. 


§ 1. Apocryphal Writings in the Latin Editions of the Old 
Testament.’ 


1. The Prayer of Manasses. Of the three apocry- 
phal writings which are allowed a place at the end of our 
authorized editions of the Latin Vulgate” the first and 
shortest is the Prayer ascribed to King Manasses, (+ 644 
B.C.) In fifteen verses, this poetical composition describes 
beautifully the sentiments of genuine repentance and humble 
trust in God’s mercy whereby the Jewish king, as we are 
told in the second book of Paralipomenon (chap. xxxiii, 13, 
1g), obtained forgiveness for his past transgressions anu 
deliverance from his captivity in Babylon. Of course this 

1 We do not deem it necessary to treat here of the short apocryphal pieces found in 
the Vulgate under the name of the Prologue to Ecclesiasticus and the Preface to the 
book of Lamentations, although the former has considerable historical importance. 

2Jn the editions anterior to that of Clement VIII, the Prayer of Manasses was 


found immediately after the second book of Paralipomenon, and the third and fourth 
books of Esdras came immediately after Nehemias, or second book of Esdras. 


I20 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Prayer has no right to be considered as identical with the 
one which the book of Paralipomenon tells us ‘‘ was written 
in the words of Hozai” (or the seers). It is a late literary 
imitation of the penitential Psalms, as may be inferred from 
its theological terms peculiar to later Judaism (such as “ 6020 
TOY Otxatwy,” “ 600g TOY petavoobytwy ”’) and probably also from 
the almost Christian feelings it expresses.’ The Hebraisms 
which it contains are not a conclusive proof that it was 
originally written in Hebrew; they may be sufficiently ac- 
counted for by ascribing its composition to a Hellenistic Jew, 
who probably wrote in the first century before the beginning 
of the Christian era. 

The Prayer of Manasses is not indeed given by Josephus, 
but his mention of a prayer of that king repentant for his 
sins is so worded as to lead us to think that the Jewish his- 
torian, who used the Septuagint Version in all its parts, was 
not unacquainted with our apocryphal document.* This in- 
ference appears all the more plausible, because there is 
hardly any doubt that the oldest Greek manuscripts of the 
Septuagint contained it, since it was translated into Latin 
before the time of St. Jerome. It must be said, however, 
that the oldest distinct witness to its existence are the Afos- 
tolic Constitutions (Book ii, chap. xxii), which reproduced its 
full text and gave it a currency which it would never have 
possessed otherwise, on account of its obscure position 
among the Canticles appended to the Psalter in the manu- 
scripts of the Septuagint.*° Thus put into active circulation, 
the Prayer of Manasses was much used and quoted by the 


1 Cfr. WestcoTT, in Smitu, Bible Dictionary, art. Manasses, prayer of; vol. iv, p. 
1777; cfr. also Luke xviii, 13, with Prayer of Manasses (verse 8). 

* Cfr. JosepHus, Antiq. of the Jews, Book x, chap. iii, § 2, with Prayer of Manasses 
(verse 10, sq.). 

3 This is its position in the Codex Alexandrinus. Prof. SwetTr (The Old Testament 
in Greek, vol. iii, p. 802, sq.) gives the text of Codex Alexandrinus and the various 
readings of the Verona and Zurich MSS. 


THE UNCANONICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 121 


Greek Fathers. Several ecclesiastical writers ' looked upon 
it as genuine and inspired. ‘Though it is still found in the 
Greek Huchologium, or collection of liturgical prayers in the 
Eastern Church, at the present day it is regarded by all as 
uncanonical. 


2. The Third Book of Esdras. The second apocry- 
phal writing now placed at the end of the authorized 
editions of the Latin Version, is the ¢hird book of Esdras, 
thus called in the Vulgate because our canonical books of 
Esdras and Nehemias are known respectively as the rst 
and the second book of Esdras. In the old Latin, Syriac 
and Septuagint versions, it was named the frst book of 
Esdras from its position immediately before our canonical 
books of Esdras and Nehemias. ‘This latter name has great 
historical importance, inasmuch as when early Councils and 
writers of the Church speak of the erst book of Esdras 
they have in view our ¢Azrd book of that name, and when 
in their lists of sacred books they mention only ¢wo books 
of Esdras, the frst to which they allude is our ‘Ard book, 
while their second corresponds to our canonical books of 
Esdras and Nehemias counted together as one work.” 

The nomenclature just referred to is found in the African 
councils of Hippo and Carthage, in the writings of St. 
Augustine, Pope Innocent I and Cassiodorus, and proves be- 
yond doubt that at a given time the canonicity of the third 
book of Esdras was officially recognized, at least in the 
Western churches. About the same period, the sacred 
character of this book was taken for granted by the leading 
writers of the East, such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, 
Eusebius, St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, who 
agree with St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and 

1S. Davipson (Introd. to the O. Test., vol. iii, London, 1863) gives their names ; 


they all belonged to the Greek Church. 
2 Cfr. Lorsy, Canon de I’ Ancien Testament, p. 91, sq. 


122 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


others in the West, in quoting as Holy Writ passages found 
nowhere except in the third book of Esdras.’ It is not 
therefore surprising to find thct in presence of such unan- 
imity of the East and of the West, up to the fifth century of 
our era, some writers should have affirmed that this work is 
truly canonical and inspired. ‘They remark that the Catholic 
Church, far from rejecting it positively as apocryphal, has 
allowed its use and inserted it in its official edition of the 
Vulgate and of the Septuagint; that by far the largest part 
of its contents is simply a duplicate of canonical passages 
in the second book of Paralipomenon and in the first and 
second of Esdras; and that, finally, it is difficult to see how 
the fact that the writing in question has ceased to be in 
use since the fifth century of our era, can invalidate the 
earlier positive testimony in its favor. 

Of course it cannot be denied that the third book of 
Esdras is almost entirely made up of truly canonical ele- 
ments, as may be seen easily in the following table: 


III Esdras i is identical with II Paralip. xxxv- 
xxvi, 21. 
ji, I-15 ‘ as ‘« I Esdras i. 
ii, 16-31 ‘ MY ‘« I Esdras iv, 7-24. 


ili-v, 6 (sole matter peculiar to the third book 
of Esdras). 
v, 7-73 is identical with I Esdras ii-iv, 5. 
vi-ix, 36 ‘ A ‘¢ I Esdras v-x. 
ix, 37-55 ‘‘ hs “TI Esdras (or Ne- 
hemias) vii, 73-viii 13a. 


But should not this almost perfect identity of contents 
between the third book of Esdras and the books which pre- 
cede and follow it in the old editions of the sacred text, 
have suggested long ago that the third book of Esdras is 


1The references to the works of these ecclesiastical writers are found in CoRNELY, 
Introductio Generalis, p, 202. 


THE UNCANONICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, 123 


really not an independent writing, but rather a revised 
translation with a single inlerpolation taken from some in- 
dependent source viz., ili-v, 6? In point of fact, the more 
closely the common elements are examined, the more will 
they appear to point to the one and same text as underlying 
. the third book of Esdras and our canonical writings, and as 
rendered more freely in the former than in the ordinary 
Greek copies of the Septuagint: the more, in one word, will 
it become probable, that the so-called third book of Esdras 
is simply a version of certain parts of Holy Writ, whose sub- 
stance is of course inspired, but whose individuality may be 
rejected by the Church, as was done in the case of the old 
Septuagint translation of the book of Daniel.’ 

The third book of Esdras has been freely used by 
Josephus.* Perhaps it goes back in its present form to the 
second century B.c. Dr. Swete, in his valuable edition of 
the Old Testament in Greek, vol. ii, has republished the 
text of Codex Vaticanus with the various readings of Codex - 
Alexandrinus. 


3. The Fourth Book or Apocalypse of Esdras. 
Hardly less widely circulated 3 and less highly valued in the 
Christian Church* than the third book of Esdras, is the 
Jast apocryphal writing found at the end of our authorized 


1 Cfr. CoRNELY, Introductio Generalis, p. 201 ; Driver, Introduction to the Litera- 
ture of the Old Testament, p. 553, sq. ; and the valuable art. Esdras (first book of), by 
H. St. J. THackKerRAy in Jas. Hastings, Bible Dictionary. 

2 Antiquities of the Jews, Book xi, chaps. i-v. 

3 The popularity which the fourth book of Esdras has enjoyed is shown by the num- 
ber of translations (Latin, Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopic, and two Arabic) which have been 
made of it (for details concerning these versions, see Jas. Hastinos, Bible Dictionary, 
art. Esdras, second book of, p. 763, sq.). 

4 The high value set on this book is evidenced (1) by the fact that such eminent early 
writers as St. Ireneus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, St. Ambrose, St. Cyprian, 
etc., have quoted it as Holy Writ; (2) by the traces it has left in the Latin liturgy (the 
passages may be found in ViGouroux, Dictionnaire de la Bible, art., Apocalypses apoc- 
ryphes, p. 761); (3) by the influence it has exercised upon the eschatological concep- 
tions of the Middte Ages (cfr. Lz Hir, Etudes Biblique-, vo!, i, p, 140, sq.). 


I24 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


editions of the Latin Vulgate. In the Latin Church it bears 
the name of the fourth book of Esdras, owing to the fact 
that the canonical books of Esdras and Nehemias are reckoned 
as the first and second of Esdras respectively, while the 
old first book of that name is now called the third book of 
Esdras ; but in the Greek Church it was styled the Ajoca- 
lypse or Prophecy of Esdras, a title which describes well the 
general form of its contents, and which on that account is 
commonly adopted by modern biblical scholars. 

If we leave aside the opening and concluding chapters 
(i, li; xv, xvi), which are certainly Christian additions to 
the work,’ the Apocalypse of Esdras is found to be made up 
of a series of revelations (drozaddders) or visions—seven in 
number—given to Esdras by the angel Uriel. The scene of 
these visions is Babylon, where Esdras is represented in the 
thirtieth year after the ruin of Jerusalem, as greatly per- 
plexed by the question: Why is Israel, the chosen people of 
God, ruled over by the heathen, though the latter be even 
more wicked than the Jews? In answer to his complaints, 
the angel bids him consider that God’s judgments are in 
themselves unsearchable, that wickedness has its appointed 
time whose end must be waited for and even recognized as 
near by certain signs which are enumerated. Upon the 
appearance of these signs men will behold wonderful things : 
the Messias will come with His retinue, and after a prosper- 
ous reign of 400 years die along with all mankind. Seven 
days later the general resurrection will take place, and the 
Most High proceed with the final judgment, the furnace of 
Gehenna being seen on one side, and over against it the 
paradise of delight. Only a few will be saved, and the 
punishment of the wicked, like the joy of the saints, will never 
end, for the judgment is just and irrevocable. ‘Then it is 


1 They have reference to such distinctly Christian doctrines as original sin, necessity 
of faith for salvation, etc. 


THE UNCANONICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 125 


that for the personal comfort of Esdras, he is granted an 
enigmatic vision, whose meaning as explained by Uriel is 
the future restoration and beauty of the holy city. The 
following vision (also enigmatic) gives a key to contemporary 
history, and because it refers to the present it is obscurely 
interpreted by the angel. In a dream, Esdras sees an eagle 
rising from the sea, having at first twelve wings and three 
heads, but gradually undergoing transformations till at last 
it is consumed in flame at the rebuke of a lion speaking with 
human voice. According to the interpretation given by 
Uriel, the eagle represents the last of Daniel’s kingdoms ; 
the twelve wings are twelve kings who are to rule over it one 
after another, and the three heads three other kings who in 
the last days will reign over the earth; these will be followed 
by two subordinate kings who are represented by two feeble 
wings which have appeared during the transformations above 
referred to, and who will be the last two rulers of this great 
kingdom ; the lion is the Messias who will arraign these 
last kings before His tribunal, destroy them and next set up 
a kingdom which will last 400 years and be followed by 
the resurrection and the universal judgment. In the next 
vision, Esdras beholds a man (the Messias) rising out of the 
sea and then standing upon a mountain (Mount Sion) from 
the top of which He consumes all His foes by the flaming 
breath of His mouth (the Law). Whereupon other men— 
some of whom in chains, whereby are meant the ten tribes 
in captivity—come to Him who has redeemed them. The 
last-chapter of the original work (chap. xiv) records how also 
in a vision, Esdras was told that he was soon to be taken from 
among men, and next commissioned by God Himself to dic- 
tate during forty days to five scribes. Esdras did so, and “in 
forty days they wrote ninety-four books ”' (the twenty-four 


1 The Received Text reads “ two hundred and four books.” 


126 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


books of the Hebrew Bible that were lost,’ and seventy others 
destined for the wise among the people), whereupon Esdras 
was carried away “ after he had written all these things.” 

Such is the bare outline of this remarkable book, which 
obviously is not the genuine work of Esdras, as is shown by 
the chrolonogical error in chap. ili, 1, which makes him con- 
temporary with the destruction of Jerusalem by Nabuchod- 
onosor. But “ it is a characteristically Jewish work in its 
apocalyptic form, its knowledge of Jewish traditions, its 
interest in the ten tribes and its deep concern in the fate of 
Jerusdlem. ‘There is. no ground for supposing that the 
author was a Jewish Christian : there is a marked contrast 
between the Christian interpolations (chaps. i, ll, xv, xvi, 
and the insertion of the name of Jesus in vii, 28) and the re- 
mainder of the book.” * The author was more probably a 
Palestinian than an Alexandrian Jew, although all take it for 
granted that he wrote in Hellenistic Greek.* 

The date at which the author wrote has been much more 
debated than his nationality : while some writers ascribe his 
work to 30 B.c., others place it as late 218 a.p. Yet, when 
the contents of the Apocalypse of Esdras in its original form 
(chaps ili-xiv) are closely examined, they supply data which 
lead us to believe with most contemporary scholars that the 
book should be dated no later than the time of Nerva (96- 
98 A.D.). The writer considers, no doubt, the ruin of Jeru- 
salem by the Romans as past; the heathen rule over the 
chosen people for some time and the levitical worship is no 
more, so that all Jewish hopes are now directed towards the 
Messias who should soon appear and set up His new kingdom 


1 As we saw in the History of the Canon of the Old Testament, it is on the strength 
of this passage of the fourch book of Esdras that several early writers of the Church 
ascribed to Esdras the closing of the Canon of the Old Testament. 

2-H. St. J. THACKERAY in Jas, Hastinas, Bible Dictionary, vol. i, p. 766. 

3 The original Greek is lost, but the Latin Version is plainly a translation from the 
Greek (cfr. Sam, Davipson, Introd. to the Old Test., vol. ii, p. 364). 


THE UNCANONICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 127 


with Sion as its capital. The eagle of the enigmatic vision 
in chaps xi-—xii represents imperial Rome, and its three heads 
are most likely the three Flavian emperors: Vespasian (ft 79) 
Titus (f 81) and Domitian (f 96 a.p.), while the two feeble 
wings which have but lately appeared and will soon be ar- 
raigned before the tribunal of the Messias, are no others than 
the old and weak emperor Nerva (96-98 A.D.) and his re- 
cently-associated Caesar, M. Ulpius Trajan (98-117 A.D.). 
It would seem therefore that the fourth book of Esdras has 
justly been called the Apocalypse of the year 97 a.D.' 


§ 2. Apocryphal Writings in the Septuagint Editions. 


I. Psalm 151st ascribed to David. The first apoc- 
typhal piece peculiar to the Greek editions’ of the Old Tes- 
tament is a short Psalm counted as the 151st and bearing the 
inscription : Otros 6 Waduds wOLoypagos efg Aavid xat ZFwhzy tod 
ap0nod, Ore euovoudynse TO L'vdtad. This title describes well 
the supposed occasion of a composition which has plainly no 
right to be considered as part of Holy Writ, although St. 
Athanasius and other Greek ecclesiastical writers have con- 
sidered it as canonical. Its comparatively recent origin is 
shown from the fact that the old Latin Version did not 
possess it, whereas it is found in more recent translations 
(Armenian, Arabic, etc.), which are directly derived from the 
Septuagint.3 The seven verses in which it is divided add 
nothing to the narrative of David’s encounter with Goliath 
in I Kings (I Sam.) on which it is clearly dependent. On 
the whole it is a very tame composition. 


1 For a careful examination of this difficult question, cfr. Scut!rer, A History of the 
Jewish People, vol. iii, div. ii, pp. g9-108; Jas. Hastrincs, Dible Dictionary, vol. i, p.. 
764, sqq.; and BrssgLu, the Apocrypha of the Old Testament fp. 643, sq. 

2 In the official Septuagint edition by Sixtus V, Psalm : mt ts placed among the 
apocryphal writings after the third book of Esdras. In the »ther editions it is found 
at the end of the Psalter. See the text of Codex Vaticanus vith the various readings cf 
Cdd. Vaticanus, Alexandrinus and the Veronaand Zurich MS»... Swete, The Old Test. 
in Greek, vol. ii, p. 415. 

3 Cfr. CoRNELY, Introductio Generalis, p. 204, sq. 


128 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


2. The Psalter of Solomonor Psalmsof the Phar- 
isees. Of much greater literary beauty and historical impor- 
tance than this 151st Psalm is almost every hymn contained in 
the collection ascribed to the son of David, under the name of 
the Psalter of Solomon. These hymns or Psalms, eighteen 
in number, though not actually found in the official edition 
of the Septuagint Version ' have a special claim to be reck- 
oned among the apocryphal books of the Old Testament, in- 
asmuch as the lists of sacred books ascribed to St. Atha- 
nasius and Nicephorus mention them as attdeydpeva or con- 
tested writings. It is true that each Psalm is composed 
upon a clearly defined plan, treats its own special topic and 
forms a separate unit; yet it cannot be denied that it forms 
at the same time an integrant part of an organic whole, 
sharing in the general tone of the collection and subserving 
its common purpose. This prevailing tone is one of gloom 
and despondency because of the heavy misfortunes which 
have but recently befallen the Jewish nation on account of 
its sins; because also of the fact that those who are spoken 
of as “sinners”’ are men of influence siding with the foreign- 
er, and abusing their power to oppress the “poor” and the 
“just.” With this are mingled from time to, time noble 
sentiments of praise to God and confidence in Him; and the 
whole collection closes with two Messianic Psalms especially 
remarkable for their exalted ideas’ of the origin, mission, 
personal character and public rule of the Anointed One 
(MwI>) of Jehovah.’ 

It is by means of a close study of the transparent allusions 
to contemporary events which are found especially in Ps. i 


q 


1 Dr. Swere has published them in his edition of the Septuagint: The Old Testa- 
ment in. Greek, vol. iii, pp. 765-787. Cfr., also, the valuable edition of the Psalms of 
Solomon by Rytrk-and James (Cambridge, 1891). 

2 For a good summary of the Messianic conception in the Psalms of Solomon, see 
RYLE and James, Introduction, p. lii, sqq. 


THE UNCANONICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 129 


ii, viii, xvii, that modern scholars are enabled to fix a very 
probable date for the whole collection. The period referred 
to is no other than the time when a mighty warrior come 
from afar at the head of his army was freely allowed to enter 
Jerusalem, where he dared to penetrate into the Holy of 
Holies ; when also after a bloody massacre, large numbers 
of Jews were carried into captivity “to the bounds of the 
west” (ws éx) ducpya),' and the pagan conqueror finally 
met with his just retribution ‘lying pierced” upon the 
Egyptian shore and remaining unburied.* These are the 
principal historical data supplied by the Psalter of Solomon, 
which clearly point to Pompey 3as the great general in 
question, and consequently to the period between 70 and 40 
B. C., aS the particular time when all our Psalms appeared, 
for “there is nothing in the style or contents of the other 
Psalms to separate them in respect of date of composition 
from those which are definitely historical in coloring.” * 

The foregoing remarks prove beyond doubt that these 
hymns cannot seriously be thought of as written by Solo- 
mon; and in truth, beyond the fact that their inscriptions 
bear the name of that monarch, they contain no certain 
allusion to their reputed author. Whether they were com- 
posed by only one or by several writers of the same period 
cannot be defined, as they are in a great measure based in 
thought and expression *® upon our canonical Psalms. But 
whoever studies them in view of the principal tenets held by 
the Pharisees and the Sadducees in the first century before 
our era, must remain convinced that the whole collection 
bears the unmistakable impress of one or several Pharisaic 

© Psa xyvil, 4a. 

2 Ps. ii, 30, 31. 

® For details see RyLE and James, loc. cit., pp. xxxix-xliii; and ScHiirer, The Jew- 
ish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, vol. ifi, 2d div., p. 18, sq. 


* RyLe and JAmgs, ibid, p. xliii. 
5 They were originally written in Hebrew. 


130 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


writers ; hence, they have justly been called “ ¢e Psalms of 
the Pharisees.” * 


3. The Third and Fourth Books of the Machabees.’ 
The last two books found in the Greek editions of the Old 
‘lestament are prose compositions which, from the connection 
of their contents with incidents recorded in our second book 
of Machabees, have been called the ¢Azrd and fourth books 
of the Machabees. The former deals with an episode of 
Jewish history, which is described as having taken place 
under the Egyptian King Ptolemy IV Philopator (B.c. 
222-204), and consequently before the Machabean period. 
It narrates that this prince, after his great victory at Raphia 
(217 B.C.), having wished to enter the inner part of the 
Temple of Jerusalem was suddenly struck by God and cast 
to the ground. After his return to Egypt, he meditated 
revenge upon all the Jews of his kingdom and caused them 
to be gathered in countless numbers in the hippodrome at 
Alexandria, intending that they should be trampled to death 
by 500 elephants. But the prayers of the people, and 
especially those of the high priest Eleazar, obtained from 
heaven several miracles which ensured their salvation. 

It would not be worth our while to speak further of a 
work, which, like the third book of the Machabees, abounds 
in absurd details,’ had it not found its way into the Apostolic 
Canons‘ as one of the writings of the Old Testament, and 
later on into the lists of several Greek writers through respect 


1 For particulars bearing this out fully, see RyLE and JAmeEs, ibid, pp. xliv-lii; and 
E. Scutrer, ibid, p. 21 (Engl. Transl.). 

2 Only the third book is found in the Sixtine edition of the Septuagint. For the 
text of the fourth book, see SwETE, The OJd Testament in Greek, vol. iii, pp. 729-762. 

3 As for instance that it took forty days to write down even a part of the names of the 
Jews confined. to the circus at Alexandria; that the paper factories gave out in their 
efforts to produce paper enough for the purpose of registration, etc., etc. (cfr. BIssELL, 
The Apocrypha of the Old Testament, p. 616, sq.). 

4 Canon lxxvi, apud CoTELizr, Patr. apost. 2d edit., p. 448 (Antwerp edit., 1700). 


THE UNCANONICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. I31 


for the Trullan Council which had mentioned approvingly 
the Apostolic Canons. It seems also to have enjoyed great 
authority in the Syrian church, as its existence in the old 
Syriac Version and a quotation from it by Theodoret (Ff ab. 
457) clearly show.’ But Nicephorus (f 828) reckons it 
among the arttdeydveva, and it seems never to have been 
used in the Latin church, so that it has really no solid claim 
to canonicity. 

Modern critics are greatly at variance as to the precise 
historical fact which underlies the narrative in the third book 
of the Machabees.* Everything considered, the narrative is 
most likely another form of the story of Heliodorus which 
is recorded in the second book of the Machabees (chap. v) 
and which became connected with Egypt and Alexandria 
under the pen of some Jewish Egyptian writer. Several 
things in its opening chapters prove that the original begin- 
ning of the book is no longer extant. The work was com- 
posed probably in the first century before the Christian era. 

The fourth book of the Machabees is more distinctly 
connected with our second canonical book of that name. 
Under the form of an address to Jewish hearers or readers, 
the writer tries to prove that it is not difficult to lead a pious 
life, if only they follow the precepts of ‘“ pious reason,” * and 
for this purpose he appeals to facts of Jewish history, 
especially to the martyrdom of Eleazar and the seven Mach- 
abean brothers which are detailed in the second canonical 
book of the Machabees (chaps. vi, vil). 

Josephus is named by Eusebius and other ecclesiastical 
writers as the author of this apocryphal work: in reality, 
their view is but a guess which several things rather tend to 


1 TuzoporET, Comment. on Daniel, chap. xi, 7; (Opp., vol. ii, p. 682, Paris, 1642). 

2 For a statement and discussion of their views, see B1ssELt, loc. cit., p. 617. 

3 Hence the secondary title of ‘On the Supremacy of Reason” given to the fourth 
book of the Machabees in St. Jerome, De Viris illustr., chap. xiii. 


132 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


disprove.’ ‘The fourth book of the Machabees was. written 
before the destruction of Jerusalem, and probably not much 
before this great event. 


§ 3. Apocryphals quoted by New Testament Writers. 


1. Names of these Apocryphal Books. By Whom 
Quoted ? Among the apocryphal books of the Old Testa- 
ment it is usual to reckon works which ecclesiastical writers 
tell us are quoted as authorities in the inspired books of the 
New Testament. Of course itis not easy in the present day 
to determine whether such books—and which, if any—are 
thus cited by the New Testament writers. Almost all the 
apocryphal compositions to which early ecclesiastical writers 
refer in this connection are known to us only by name. 
Again, as passages of the Old Testament are often freely 
quoted_in the New, or even combined together, it is difficult 
to define whether a given passage of the New. Testament 
Scriptures not found literally in our canonical books of the 
old Covenant, be really a quotation from an uncanonical 
book, or simply a free citation or combination of passages of 
the Old Testament. Finally, apocryphal books were often 
tampered with by early Christian hands, so that passages 
found in our books of the New Testament which subsequent 
writers looked upon as quotations from uncanonical writings, 
may be after all nothing but interpolations of an earlier 
date.” 

However all this may be, it is certain that only a few 
apocryphal books were ever considered as quoted by the 
inspired writers of the New Testament. ‘These books are 
(1) a certain “ Apocryphal of Jeremias” which Origen and 
St. Jerome think was quoted by St. Matthew xxvii, 9; (2) 


1 Cfr. SCHURER, loc cit..p 246 

2 This is apparently the case with Gal. vi, 15, found in the so-called “ Apocalypse of 
Moses ”’ (cfr ScvurerR, The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, vol. iii, 2d 
div., p. €1, Engl. Transl.), 


THE UNCANONICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 133 


“the Apocalypse of Elias,” which, according to the same 
ecclesiastical writers, is cited in I Cor. 11, 9, and again, ac- 
cording. to) St- Hpiphanius, ‘in Ephes’¥vj, "14; (@) “the 
Assumption of Moses,” which Origen, Didymus of Alex- 
andria (f ab. 395), etc., regard as quoted in the short Epistle 
of St. Jude (verse 9); finally (4) “the book of Enoch,” 
which Tertullian, St. Augustine, St. Jerome consider as 
quoted in the same Catholic Epistle (Jude, verses 14-15).' 

Here we shall speak only of the last-named book, “the 
book of Enoch,” because of the high value set upon it during 
the early ages of Christianity, and because of its revived 
importance in modern times.” 


2. The Book of Enoch. When we bear in mind 
that the early writers of the Church took literally the words 
of St. Jude “ Enoch also the seventh from Adam, prophesied, 
saying,” * which introduce a passage from the book of 
Enoch,’ we can easily understand how they did not hesitate 
to treat as Holy Writ a book which in their eyes had the 
solemn approval of an apostle. In point of fact, the author 
of the Epistle of Barnabas (after 70 a.p.) cites Enoch 
twice as Scripture, and St. Athenagoras (about 170 A.D.) 
regards its author as a true prophet. A little later, Tertul- 
lian emphatically defends the divine character of the book 
of Enoch, whilst Origen, though not regarding it strictly as 
inspired, does not dare to reject it altogether. Other writers, 
like St. Justin, St. Irenzeus, etc., though not explicitly in favor 
of its divine character, are perfectly acquainted with its con- 


1 A few other passages of the New Testament (Luke xi, 49; John vii, 38; and Jas. 
iv, 5 are also regarded by some modern writers as quotations from sources uncanonical, 
but which cannot be identified even conjecturally. 

2 For particulars concerning the other books see Trochon, Cornely, Vigouroux, 
Schiirer, Bissell, etc., opp. cit. 

3 The formula citand: in Jude (verses 14,15) is identical with the formula which in- 
troduces a passage from Isaias in St. Matt. (xv, 7) and St. Mark (vii, 6). 

4 Enoch, chap. i, 9, cfr. chap, lx, 8, where Enoch is called ‘‘ the seventh from Adam,” 
exactly as St. Jude calls him, 


134 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


tents, or quote it as an authority.’ In the fourth century 
however, St. Hilary of Poitiers, St. Jerome and St. Augustine 
agree with the apostolic constitutions in speaking of the 
book of Enoch as an “apocryphal,” ‘full of fables,” and 
under the ban of such authorities, the book soon passed out 
of use and knowledge till 1773, when the English traveller 
Bruce brought from Abyssinia two MSS. of an Ethiopic trans- 
lation, from one of which Laurence made the first modern 
translation of Enoch in 1821. 

The book of Enoch belongs to that apocalyptic literature 
which, under the form of revelations and visions, aimed at 
solving the difficulties connected with the righteousness of 
God and the suffering condition of His faithful servants— 
whether collectively or individually—here below. In its 
present form, it is clearly a compilation whose first origin 
may be traced back to the sense which the Jews had grad- 
ually evolved from the passage of Genesis (v, 24), where it 
is said that “‘ Enoch walked with God.” This was supposed 
to point “to superhuman privileges granted to Enoch by 
means of which he received special revelations as to the 
origin of evil, the relations of men and angels in the past, 
their future destinies, and particularly the ultimate triumph 
of righteousness. It was not unnatural, therefore, that an 
apocalyptic literature began to circulate under his name in 
the centuries when such literature became current. In the 
Book of Enoch, translated from the Ethiopic, we have large 
fragments proceeding from a variety of Pharisaic writers in 
Palestine, and in the Look of the Secrets of Enoch, translated 
from the Slavonic, we have additional portions of this liter- 


ature.’’? 


1 The testimonies of these ecclesiastical writers may be found in R. H. CHARLEs, 
The Book of Enoch, p. 38, sqq., and ScHtirer, The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus 
Christ, vol. iii, 2d div., p. 70, sqq. (Engl. Transl.). 

2 R. H. CHarces, art. Enoch (the Book of) in Jas. Hastings, Bible Dict., p. 705.— 
Thirty chapters of the book of Enoch in the Greek were discovered in Egypt in 1886, ° 


THE UNCANONICAL BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 135 


When the contents of the book of Enoch are closely ex- 
amined, they are found to bear chiefly on the justification of 
God’s providence inthe world. Four of its sections—out of 
five—have clearly for their object to describe the precise 
manner in which righteous and unrighteous creatures have 
already met or will later meet with a just retribution. Sin 
appeared first in the world of spirits and corruption was in- 
troduced among mankind by the intercourse of the unfaithful 
angels (the Watchers, as they are called) with the daughters 
of men. The Watchers were punished at once by confine- 
ment in a deep abyss where they await the final judgment, 
while the gigantic race issued from their unlawful inter- 
course was swept away by the Flood. Sin, it is true, con- 
tinues to prevail in the world through the temptations offered 
to the sons of Adam by the wandering spirits (demons) that 
have gone forth from the slaughtered children of the Watch- 
ers and the daughters of men; it is true also that kings and 
mighty trust in their power to oppress the children of God, 
but sin and oppression will not last forever. The righteous 
as a nation shall one day possess the earth in the prosperous 
kingdom of the Messias, and the destiny of the individual 
shall be finally determined according to his works: while 
the unrighteous will be given up to the angels of punishment 
to be tortured in Gehenna, heaven and earth shall be trans- 
formed, the righteous and the elect shall possess eternal 
mansions therein, enjoy the presence of the “ Elect One” 
and forever be like angels in heaven. 

Such is the general outline of these four sections, which, 
because they formed originally four separate works, present 
the problem and its solution in a somewhat different manner. 
It is impossible to peruse them without being struck by the 
number of expressions and ideas—regarding the last judg- 
ment and general resurrection, heaven and hell, the person 
of the Messias, His origin, titles, character, mission and 


136 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


power, etc.,—which are common to the book of Enoch and 
to the various writings of the New Testament. It is plain 
that the two collections of books known as the book of 
Enoch and the New Testament are not absolutely independ- 
ent of each other, and since it cannot be doubted that the 
former existed before the latter was composed (Enoch was 
compiled between 200 and 65 B.c.), the great influence of 
the book of Enoch upon the writings of the New Testa- 
ment must be admitted.’ 


1 All the questions connected with the book of Enoch have been admirably treated by 
R. H. Cuarves, The Book of Enoch (Oxford, 1893), and art. Enoch (Ethiopic book of) 
in Jas. Hastincs, Bible Dictionary. Here isa- short list of passages or expressions 
whose resemblance is very striking between the New Testament and the book of Enoch: 


Matt: xixs 2Silcreecilers slots lem netnibyermc recy Enoch 1xi, 5 5 

IGN aa oi Klee hooob nd oboobeods [40500 cokodese Enoch I xiii, 10 3 

Touke' xxi, 28 cece cole iielsieisisis emertere roan Enoch 1xi, 2 ; 

Aiclinetyineen eyfoendonoe poemncoe Oboe dose a 408 Enoch Ixix, 27 ; 

Ieidsehin Meson ouceidaqune Gacous Sasoisos00ce Enoch xxxix, 4; 

Rom. ix, 5; II Cor. xi, 31......---2se00- Enoch Ixxvii, 13 

Ephess 1, 9.0s0snes tune oni anode amaeto eer: Enoch xlix, 43 

Philip. ii, 10. /.¢.s0¢ + cieicsier a slanted ostew nn Enoch xlviii, 5 3 

I Thessalsv, 3 sete 1-1 leiatent icing etre telnet Enoch Ixii, 4 3 

HARM ah ar pine node odonoddo upon anes So Enoch ix, 43 

Hebiiv, 53 Scents setsine sain cteerecyetele ei araetsteere Enoch ix, 5 3 

Apocal. ii, 7: iii, 103 xiii, 14 ......-eeee . Enoch xxv, 4, 53 XXxvii, 5; liv, 6; 
Apocal. ¥X} £3. snes oicistessisieatnn Bian onleer Enoch li, 1: 

TT Peter. 3,14 cee cre = sveietoie ss cievsye eivialein eicleiesiy eres Enoch x, 4-6, 12, 13 ; 

Jude, verses 4, 6, 13-.seccecsevscceees sees Enoch xlviii, 10; x, 5,63 xviil, 15 3 
JUGERVETSELS wre ticle ol olersters eieleiousie te Nareter eerste Enoch Ix, 8 ; 


Jude, verses 14, 15 eecessecceseceeeecer cece Enoch i, 93 v, 43 XXVil, 2. 


DA NOP Sa Gi AP ER Sy). 


PRINCIPAL APOCRYPHAL BooKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 





(First, Group: ( The Childhood of Jesus. 
I, Extant Gospels. 
Refer to ( The Passion of Our Lord, 
APOCRYPHAL 
Second Group: 
GOSPELS : Gospels no 


The Gospel of Peter. 
The Gospel according to the He- 








longer extant: brews. 
13v . Names and general value. 
APOCRYPHAL . Brief account 
Of the second century. 
AcTs OF THE | of the principal 
Of the third century. 
APOSTLES: Acts 
II 1. Correspondence between St. Paul and the Corin 
: thians. 
EAL oo The Epistle to the Laodiceans. 
aor LES.: 3. Correspondence between St. Paul and Seneca. 
IV. 
1. The Revelation of Peter. 
APOCRYPHAL 
2. The Visiones Pauli. 
APOCALYPSES : 


+37 


CHAPTER VI. 
PRINCIPAL APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 
§ 1. Apocryphal Gospels. 


1. Apocryphal Gospels still Extant. It was but 
a short time after our canonical Gospels had begun to be 
widely circulated in the early churches, and had been fully 
approved for public use in Christian services, when pious 
believers in Christ, struck with the incompleteness of these 
authentic A/emoirs, earnestly desired whatever additional in- 
formation might be secured. Moreover, at that time, there 
were still disconnected stories and more or less local tradi- 
tions put forth under the names of such Apostlcs as James, 
Thomas, etc., or intimately connected with the facts or per- 
sonages barely mentioned in the canonical Gospels, so that 
it was only natural that some, at least, of the current stories 
or traditions should be written down and freely circulated 
with such titles as the Gospels of James, of Thomas, of the 
Infancy, etc. To these were soon added pure fictions, 
which were given also sacred names as a passport; and in 
this way a large apocryphal literature having some manner 
of connection with our Gospels was formed within the 
Church itself: it has received the general name of the 
Apocryphal Gospels. 

It cannot be denied that most of the uncanonical produc- 
tions have left but few traces in the writings of the Fathers 
of the Church, and that even the least fanciful among them 
are regarded by all as apocryphal and add little real infor- 

138 


PRINCIPAT, APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF NEW TESTAMENT. 139 


mation to the data suppliec by our canonical sources. Yet, 
as the legends which they relate have exercised a very great 
influence upon the popular notions of the Middle Ages, as 
they are at times the only ground for certain popular beliefs 
about Our Lord, His Blessed Mother, His Apostles, etc., 
which survive down to the present day, and chiefly as the 
scenes which they describe have been often utilized in art 
and literature, some few remarks about them may be wel- 
come here.’ We shall therefore briefly speak of them 
under the two following heads: (4) Gospels referring to 
the Childhood of Jesus; (4) Gospels connected with His 
Passion. 

(A) Gospels Referring to the Childhood of Jesus.” The 
first, and indeed least objectionable, apocryphal Gospel re- 
ferring to the childhood of Jesus, is the so-called Protevan- 
gelium Jacobi. In its present form, it was not composed 
before the second century of our era, although it claims to 
be the work of James, the brother of the Lord. In its open- 
ing chapters it relates the angelic message to Anna and 
Joachim, announcing that they should have a child; the 
birth of Mary and her presentation in the Temple when 
three years of age, and her marriage to Joseph at the age of 
twelve. Then come the Annunciation, the journey to Beth- 
lehem consequent on the enrolment prescribed by Augustus, 
and the birth of Jesus in a cave at Bethlehem, soon followed 
by the visit of the Magi. The book concludes with a narra- 
tive of the massacre of the Holy Innocents, and with the 
subscription of James. 

It is easy to recognize in this book a historical ground- 


1 Moreover, a study of the Apocryphal Gospels clearly proves their posteriority and 
inferiority to our canonical records of Our Lord’s life and teachings; (cfr. ViGouROUX, 
Manuel Biblique, vol. i, n. 69). 

2 For an English translation, cfr. B. H. Cowper, the Apocryphal Gospels; and Alex. 
Wa ker, Apocryphal Gospels, Acts and Revelations, in vol. xvi of the Ante-Nicene 
Library (T. T. Clark, Edinburgh). 


140 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


work, which is no other than certain facts recorded in 
our canonical Gospels, and which is clearly distinguishable 
from the additions supplied either by oral tradition or by 
* while the lat- 
ter are childish tales, the former are solid staple of history. 
It cannot be denied that “the prodigies related by the Prote- 
vangelium Jacobi, in connection with Mary, indicate that at 
the time special attention and honor had begun to be paid 
tolhens. 

Another apocryphal writing connected with the childhood 
of Jesus, and going back also to the second century of our 
era, is the Gospel of Thomas.? It has reached us in different 
recensions (Greek, Latin, Syriac), and apparently in a very 


mutilated form.* The book is supposed to describe the in- 


written works concerning Mary and Joseph; 


fancy of Jesus; in reality, it is made up of fictitious stories 
in which the puerile, extravagant, and even cruel character 
of the miracles ascribed to the divine Child are in striking 
contrast with that of the miracles recorded in our canonical 
Gospels. 

Through a combination of facts found in the Gospels of St. 
Matthew and St. Luke, with data supplied by the two Apoc- 
ryphal Gospels already mentioned, there arose somewhere 
about the fifth or the sixth century of our era ® another unca- 
nonical writing now known under the name of the Aradic 
Gospel of the Infancy. The first nine chapters cover pretty 
much the same ground as the chapters xvii—xxv of the Prote- 
vangelium Jacobi, for they relate the events commencing 
with the journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem to the 


1 The latter is the supposition advanced by Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen 
Litteratur (cfr. Vicouroux, Dictionnaire de la Bible, art. Evangiles apocryphes, p. 2115). 

2 B. H. Cowrer, The Apocryphal Gospels, p. liii. 

3 In its primitive form it seems to have been known to St. Ireneus (Against Heres, 
Book i, chap. xx, §1,) and perhaps to St. Justin (Dial. with Trypho, chap. Ixxxviii). 

4 These recensions have been rendered into English by B. H. Cowper, opere cit. 

5 Traces of it are found in the Koraz, Suras (i. e. chaps.) iii, v, xix. 


PRINCIPAL APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF NEW TESTAMENT. I4I 


massacre of the Holy Innocents. The second part (chaps. 
XX—xXxxv), “relates at length what is feigned to have happened 
during the flight into Egypt, the sojourn there, and the re- 
turn of the Holy Family. It is the product of an extravagant 
imagination, and is most likely a collection of Egyptian 
tales, invented and compiled with the intention of glorifying 
the Lord’s Mother as the chief minister of His divine power 
and favor.” * On the other hand, the third part of this Gospel 
(chaps. xxxvi-lv) bears some rescmblance to the Gospel of 
Thomas.’ It records events supposed to have happened be- 
tween the seventh and the twelfth years of Our Lord’s life, to- 
gether with a brief mention of His subsequent life to His 
thirtieth year, and of His baptism in the Jordan. 

The last Gospel referring to the childhood of Jesus which 
we shall mention here’ is called the A7story of Joseph the 
Carpenter. Like the preceding, it has come down to us only 
through the Arabic, and goes back to about the fifth century 
after Christ. The writer, whose object is clearly to exalt 
Joseph in the eyes of his readers, introduces Jesus as telling 
to His disciples the history of His foster-father. Joseph is 
herein described as a priest, married, and having six chil- 
dren. After the death of his wife, he is espoused to Mary, 
who soon conceives and gives birth to Jesus in Bethlehem. 
The flight into Egypt and return to Nazareth are next men- 
tioned, and the rest of the book is taken up with a long 
account of the last days of Joseph, of his terrors at the 
approach of death, and finally of his decease: and burial, 
‘after he had completed one hundred and eleven years.” 


1B. H. Cowrkgr, the Apocryphal Gospel, p. 170. 

2 Of the other two Apocryphal Gospels which are usually connected with the child- 
hood of Jesus, the one entitled the Gosfel of the Nativity of Mary, is most likely a 
Latin translation and ‘adaptation of the Protevangelium Jacobi, while the other called 
the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, or of the Infancy of Mary and Jesus, 1s probably 
derived from both the Protevangelium Jacobi and the Gospel of Thomas (cfr. 
SALMmoN, Introduction to the New Testament, Lect. xi). ; 


I42 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


‘This book is characterized by features by no means devoid 
of interest, although most improbable, unreasonable, and in 
the worst possible taste. The marvellous and the super- 
natural abound, and the writer is not always careful to be 
consistent even with himself; his audacity in ascribing the 
narration co Our Lord, and in claiming the same authority 
for the observance of the annual commemoration of Joseph, 
will be apparent to every reader.’ ” 

(B) Gospels Referring to the Passion of Our Lord. Only 
two really distinct narratives of this kind have come down 
to us: these are the Acta Pilati, or “ Acts of Our Lord 
Jesus Christ wrought in the time of Pontius Pilate,” and the 
Descensus Christi ad Inferos. Since the sixteenth century 
they are usually published under the common name of the 
Gospel of Nicodemus, but beyond the fact that their narrative 
bears on the last scenes mentioned in our canonical records, 
they have but little in common, for they are works of dif- 
ferent dates, contents, and authorship. . 

The first part of what is now called the Gospel of Nico- 
demus, details the trial, crucifixion, burial, resurrection and 
ascension of Jesus, mentioning carefully the marvellous in- 
cidents connected with these events, and the attitude of the 
friends and enemies of Our Saviour. In its present form, 
it can hardly be older than the fourth century of our era, 
although a much higher antiquity was formerly assigned to 
it, on the ground that St. Justin had it in view when he re- 
ferred to the Acta Pilati’ as still preserved in the imperial 
records. The best critics, however, suppose that the holy 
martyr did not himself know of such document, and simply 


1B. H. Cowper, loc. cit., p. 100. 

? First Apology, chaps. xxxv, xlviii. Naturally enough, numerous apocryphal writ- 
ings gathered around the name of Pilate, such as the Letter of Pilate to Tiberius, the 
Letters of Herod and Pilate, the Report of Pilate, the Governor, the Trial and Con- 
demnation of Pilate, the Death of Pilate, etc., (cfr. B. H. Cowper, Apocryphal Gospels, 
p. 388, sqq.). 


PRINCIPAL APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF NEW TESTAMENT. .143 


took it for granted that Pontius Pilate had sent to the 
Emperor ‘Tiberius an account of his doings concerning 
Our Lord. St. Epiphanius (ft 403) seems to be the earli- 
est ecclesiastical writer acquainted with our apocryphal 
writing.’ 

_ The second part of the Gospel of Nicodemus contains an 
account of the Descent of Christ to the Underworld. Lucius 
and Carinus, two of the saints who were raised at Our Lord’s 
resurrection, relate how, during their confinement in Hades, 
they beheld with delight the appearance of Jesus at its 
entrance, how they saw its drazen gates broken and its 
numerous prisoners released, and finally how the Conqueror 
“went to paradise, holding the forefather Adam by the 
hand, and delivered him, and all the righteous, to the 
archangel Michael.” The exact date to which this Des- 
census Christi ad Inferos should be referred, cannot, of 
course, be determined. The earliest witness to it is, in- 
deed, Eusebius of Alexandria (fifth century),’ but several 
things go to show that it is of very great antiquity.3 


2. Gospels no Longer Extant. It would be a long 
and useless task to reproduce here the list of all the apocry- 
phal Gospels which are known to us only by their title, or 
by a few passages still found in some one or other of the 
great ecclesiastical writers of the third and fourth centuries. 
Issuing from heretical pens, and written for the purpose of 
spreading or supporting heterodox doctrines, these produc- 
tions were naturally looked upon with suspicion by Catholic 
writers at their first appearance, and soon afterward put under 
the public ban of the Church, so that being practically con- 


1 St. EprpHANius, Against Heresies (Heres. L.). 

2 About this writer, who should not be confounded with Eusebius of Czsareéa, 
cfr. ScuAFF-HERzoG, Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, § v. 

3 Cfr. SALMON, Introduction to the New Testament, 8th edit, pp. 183, 184. 


144 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


fined within the narrow limits of a sect, they gradually 
ceased to be circulated, and ultimately disappeared.’ Two 
of these writings, however, deserve here a special notice, 
viz., the Gospel of Leter, and the Gospel According to the 
flebrews. 

The first of these Gospels, a short fragment of which was 
dug up in 1886 in an ancient cemetery at Akhmim (Upper 
Egypt) was well known to Eusesrius of Czsarea, who classed 
it among the heretical books which must be absolutely re- 
jected, and to SERaprIon, Bishop of Antioch from Igo to 210 
A.D., who forbade its public use in churches.’ It is clearly 
the work of the Docetee of the’ second century, and it was 
most likely composed in Syria, where we first hear of it. In 
speaking of St. Justin’s acquaintance with our canonical 
Gospels we already stated that the holy martyr never used, 
if he knew at all, the apocryphal Gospel of Peter.’ 

Of much greater importance in the history of the New 
Testament writings is the second Gospel above mentioned, 
for speaking of it under the name of the Gospel of the Naza- 
renes, St. Jerome considers it as the Hebrew original of our 
Greek canonical Gospel according to St. Matthew. Again, 
many ecclesiastical writers, among whom St. Justin (Tf 163), 
were acquainted with it, and during the third and fourth 
centuries Hebrew-speaking sectaries used it as the genuine 
work of our first Evangelist. It is therefore a very ancient 
production, but as far as can be judged from the fragments 
which have come down to us, it has no right to originality as 
compared with our canonical Gospel. This is the almost 


1 A well-nigh full list of the no longer extant Apocryphal Gospels is given in SCHAFF- 
Hxrzoc, Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, art Afocrypha of the New Testa- 
ment. 

2 Serapion’s letter has been preserved by Eusgsius, Eccles. Hist., Book vi, chap. xii. 

8 For further details, see the translation of the newly-discovered fragment published 
in 1892, by J. A. Robinson and M. R. James; see, also, SALMon, Introd. to the New 
Test., 8th edit., Appendix iii. 


PRINCIPAL APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF NEW TESTAMENT. 145 


unanimous verdict of Rationalistic’ as well as of conserva- 
tive scholars, and it is not improbable that, in holding a dif- 
ferent view, St. Jerome yielded somewhat to his well-known 
bias for whatever smacked of the Hebraica Veritas. Be this as 
it may, it is unquestionable that our canonical Gospel of St. 
Matthew is incomparably superior in originality and sim- 
plicity to the apocryphal Gospel according to the Hebrews. 


§ 2. Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles? 


1. Names and General Value. As might naturally 
be expected, apocryphal writings connected with the other 
books of the New Testament beside the Gospels, appeared 
during the early ages of Christianity. Most of these pro- 
ductions under the different names of Acts (//pd&ets), Cir- 
cuits (Hepfodor), Miracles (Oavpdéra), Martyrdom (Mapriproy, 
Tedstwots), profess to record the apostolic labors of the first 
preachers of the Gospel, and are on that account usually 
designated under the general name of the Apocryphal Acts of 
the Apostles. The principal among them are in the second 
century the Acts of Paul and Thecla, the Acts of St. John, 
those of St. Peter and St. Paul and of St. Andrew; and in the 
third century, the Acts ascribed to St. Thomas, the Teaching 
of Addai (Thaddeus), and the Clementine Recognitions. * 

If we except the last of these apocryphal writings, they all 
seem to have taken their origin in heretical circles, and de- 


1 This is the view of such anti-traditional writers as Strauss, Renan, Keim, Lipsius, 
and Weizsacker. A good discussion of the question of St. Matthew’s originality will be 
found in SALMoN, ibid., p. 163, sqq. 

2 An English translation of the Apocryphal Acts may be found in vol. xvi of the Ante- 
Nicene Library (T. T. Clark). 

3 The most important works to be consulted in connection with the Apocryphal Acts 
are FAasrictus, Codex Apocryphus Novi Testamenti; T1scHENDoRF, Acta Apostolorum 
Apocrypha; Wm. WricuT, Apocryphal Acts (Syriac) of the Apostles; Lipsius, Die 
apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und Apostellegenden. For a concise account of the 
principal Apocryphal Acts, cfr. P. BaATirFoL, art. Actes Apocryphes, in V1icouRoux, 
Dictionnaire de la Bible, p. 159, sqq.; and especially SALMon, Introduction to the New 
Testament, 8th edit., Lect. xix, pp. 325-355. 

10 


146 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


spite their alterations and recastings by orthodox hands, 
bear still traces of the tenets of the sects for the use of which 
they were originally composed. In the early Christian ages 
Ebionites, Gnostics, Encratites, etc., were busily engaged 
writing tales of wonders wrought by the Apostles, which 
would have a lively interest for heretics and orthodox alike, 
and by means of which doctrinal errors would be easily prop- 
agated. Of course, no faithful Catholic individual or com- 
munity.ever dreamt of setting any other record of apostolic 
labors and sufferings on the same level as the inspired 
Acts of the Apostles by St. Luke, so that this branch of 
Christian literature was less closely watched over by eccle- 
siastical authority than would certainly have been the case, 
if attempts at canonizing it had been made in the Church. 
As a consequence, these apocryphal books fell easily into 
the hands of Catholics, and were circulated freely among 
them under the form of expurgated copies which, whilst con- 
taining the events whose substance was supposed to be faith- 
fully recorded, had been rendered inoffensive to ortho- 
dox readers by the correction or removal of whatever was 
deemed objectionable. It is clear, therefore, that beside the 
fact that these apocryphal writings presuppose the existence 
of our canonical book of the Acts, and prove its incompara.- 
ble superiority by way of contrast, all such compositions ada 
very little, if anything, to our knowledge of the manner in 
which our New Testament writings were composed and 
finally gathered up into one authoritative collection. It can- 
not be denied, however, that a careful study of their contents 
may at times light up the path of the Catholic interpreter, 
and because of this we shall give a brief account of the most 
important among them. 


2. Brief Account of the Principal Acts of the Sec- 
ond and Third Centuries. Obviously it is no easy task 


PRINCIPAL APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF NEW TESTAMENT. 147 


at the present day to define whether and to what extent an 
apocryphal book of Acés has been altered for orthodox pur- 
poses, and this seems to be particularly the case with the Acts 
of Paul and Thecla. Thescene of that historical romance— 
which has come down to us very little expurgated from its 
primitive Encratic errors ’—is laid in Asia Minor and in 
those parts of it which adjoin Proconsular Asia. The 
writer relates how, after a sermon of Paul in Iconium, a 
virgin named Thecla broke her intended marriage with 
Thamyris, the chief man of the city. This was followed by 
the arrest of Paul, his trial before the proconsul, and his 
expulsion from Iconium. ‘Thecla, saved miraculously from 
the flames, to which she had been sentenced by her own 
mother, rejoined Paul, and obtained from him the _per- 
mission to accompany him to Antioch. There she was 
submitted to new and severe trials on the part of the 
Syriarch Alexander, who had been charmed with her 
beauty ; but she overcame them all through divine inter- 
vention. After Paul had taken leave of her, Thecla con- 
tinued to a great age at Seleucia, living on herbs and water, 
and making many converts to the faith of Christ. 

This story was known to Tertullian (f ab. 220), who states 
that a presbyter of Asia had confessed his authorship of 
the work and was thereupon degraded. It was also known 
to a large number of Fathers (Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory 
of Nazianzen, etc.), who, differently from Tertullian and 
Jerome, looked upon it as genuine. The Acts of Paul 
and Thecla were probably composed about 175 a.p. by 
a writer who modelled his work after Gnostic Acts which 
had been published some time before. 

Among the Gnostic writings after the pattern of which 


1Satmon, loc. cit., p. 333, admits with Baronius (Annales) and Grabe (Svicilegium 
sanctorum Patrum) that “the extant is the original form” of the Acts of Paul and 
Thecla. ( 


148 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


the Acts of Paul and Thecla may have been written, we 
must reckon the Acts of St. John, which left so many traces 
on Church tradition. As far as can be gathered from the 
twofold Latin recension of these Acts which has long been 
known in the West under the names of Prochorus * and Melito, 
and from the Greek fragments recently published,’ this 
apocryphal work goes back to about the middle of the second 
century, and is probably identical with the Acts ascribed 
to Leucius, parts of which were read in the second Council 
of Nicaea (787 a.p.),° and declared heretical. It is in 
these Acts that we find it stated that Jesus interposed three 
times in order to prevent the beloved disciple from marry- 
ing, and that John’s virginity had been the reason of his 
special privileges, notably of having had the Virgin Mary 
committed to his care by his dying Master. From the 
same Acts of St. John is probably derived the tradition 
found in the Canon of Muratori and repeated by Clement 
of Alexandria and St. Jerome, to the effect that John’s 
composition of the fourth Gospel originated in the request of 
the bishops of Asia that the beloved disciple should write a 
Gospel which would put a stop to the inroads of the Ebionite 
heresy. Finally, to the same apocryphal book goes back | 
most likely the legend of John having been cast into burning 
oil, and taken out unhurt.’ | 

Two other apocryphal Acts which are certainly Gnostic 
in their origin, are the Acts of St. Peter and St. Paul, and 
those of St, Andrew. The first of these has come down to 
us in two Latin recensions, bearing the names of Popes 


1'The recension of Prochorus was published for the first time by DE LA BIGNE, 
Bibliotheca Maxima Patrum, vol. ii., cols. 185-230. 


2 The best edition of these Greek fragments is that of ZAHN, Acta Joannis, Erlangen, 
1882. 


3 Cfr. Labbe (edit. Hardouin), Acta Conciliorum, vol. iv, p. 295, sq. 


* Cfr. SALMon, loc. cit., p. 351, sqq. 


PRINCIPAL APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF NEW TESTAMENT. 149 


Linus’ and Marcellus, which are not older than the fourth 
century of our era, but may be referred ultimately to a more 
ancient work entitled Mepivdue Ilécpov zat Maddov, fragments of 
which in the Greek have been recently published.” A very 
important Greek fragment of the Acts of St. Andrew and 
Matthew has also been recently edited. It relates how 
Matthew, having been made captive in a country of can- 
nibals, Andrew was sent to his rescue by Our Lord. In the 
guise of a seaman, Andrew reached that land with his dis- 
ciples, delivered Matthew, but was submitted to terrible 
torments for several days. As, however, he caused a flood 
to inundate the city in which he was detained, the final 
result was a general conversion of the inhabitants. Plainly 
this story has but little in common with the Catholic work 
commonly known as the Lprstola encychca presbyterorum 
et diaconorum Achiae de martyrio Sancti Andree which de- 
scribes Andrew’s martyrdom in Patras by order of the 
proconsul A%geas, because his preaching had induced Maxi- 
milla, the wife of the proconsul, to leave her husband.’ 
Of-the apocryphal Acts to be ascribed to the third century, 
none are more unquestionably Gnostic im character than the 
Acts of Thomas." After much tergiversation, Thomas agreed 
to go to India, the country which had been allotted to him 
in the division of the world between the Twelve, to lend his 
services to a powerful king in the construction of a magnifi- 
cent palace. On the way, the ship touched at a city whose 
king was making a marriage for his only daughter... The 


1 The Pseudo-Linus Acts are found in DE La BiGcneg, Bibliotheca Maxima Patrum, 
vol, ii, cols. 231-246 (Paris edit., 1576). 

* The English translation of the Pseudo-Marcellus is found in vol. xvi of the Ante. 
Nicene Library (T. T. Clark). 

3 For bibliographic references, see Hastinas, Dict. of the Bible, art. Andrew, p. 93. 
For the translation of the Greek fragments and the Latin “ Epistola,’’ see vol. xvi of 
the Ante-Nicene Library (T. T. Clark). 

4 Satmon, Introduction to the New ‘Testament, ascribes the Acts of Thomas to the 
second century. 


I50 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


marriage was blessed by Thomas, and on the very bridal 
night, Jesus, appearing under the form of His Apostle, in- 
duced the young people to practise virginity. To this they 
pledged themselves, to the great displeasure of the king, who 
would have apprehended Thomas, had he not already sailed 
away. Arrived in India, the Apostle received plentiful 
means for building the royal palace he had agreed upon, 
but instead of erecting it he reared a spiritual edifice by his 
preaching, alms and miracles, making numerous converts 
whom he baptized, christened and admitted at the eucha- 
ristic banquet. The king was greatly incensed at such con- 
duct, but, through a wonderful intervention of heaven, he 
was converted and received baptism. ‘Then it was that 
Thomas started on a new journey which resulted in his 
martyrdom. 

Such is the substance of these Acts which have come down 
to us in a very complete form, and which are well worth 
studying because of their description of the Gnostic ritual 
and also because of their copious use of the writings of the New 
Testament. Two facts especially lead us to think of Syria as 
the place where the Acts of St. Thomas originated ; the first 
is that they know nothing of the second and third Epistles of 
St. John, of the second Epistle of St. Peter and of the Epistle 
of St. Jude, which were still absent from the old Syriac ver- 
sion of the New Testament ; ‘the second is that they agree 
in several particulars with the Zeaching of Addai, an apoc- 
ryphal writing originally composed in Syriac.’ 

The coincidences just referred to between the Acts of 
Thomas and the Teaching of Addai are all the more remark- 
able, because, while the former work is filled with Gnosticism, 
the latter is absolutely untainted by heretical views. In the 
Teaching of Addai or Thaddzus we are told that the King 


1 Satmon, ‘loc. cit., has some valuable pages on the Acts of St. Thomas. For an 
English translation of these Acts, see vol. xvi of the Ante-Nicene Library, p. 389, sqq. 


PRINCIPAL APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF NEW TESTAMENT. 151 


of Edessa (in Northern Mesopotamia) Abgar Oukhamé,' 
being afflicted with an incurable disease, and having heard 
of the wonderful deeds of Jesus, sent messengers to Him 
with a letter wherein he invited Christ to come to Edessa to 
heal him and share his throne, far from the plots which the 
Jews were contriving against Him. Jesus answers that He 
‘must fulfil His mission in Judza, and afterwards be taken 
up to Him by whom He had been sent, but promises at the 
same time that, before returning to His Father, He would 
charge one of His Apostles with restoring the monarch to 
health. Addai, to whose lot it fell to preach the Gospel in 
Mesopotamia, started soon after Pentecost, for that country, 
where he healed the King and one of his courtiers likewise 
stricken with an incurable disease. ‘Then it was that the 
Apostle caused all the inhabitants of the capital to be gath- 
ered in the market-place, preached to them and converted 
them all, Jews and pagans alike. Thereupon Addai caused 
the heathen temples to be destroyed, and built the first 
Edessan church, which he governed to the end of his life. 
When about to’die, he appointed to succeed him Agegai, 
whom he had raised to the priesthood, and when dead he 
was buried in the magnificent mausoleum of the Kings of 
Edessa. 

Of course, the Teaching of Addai is not historical ;* it 1s 
a legend which was well known to Eusebius, and which has 
come down to us under different forms. It has, however, ex- 
ercised a great influence upon Syriac history and literature ; 
still it has really little connection with the question of the 
Canon of the New Testament, beyond the fact that in the 
decretal ascribed to St. Gelasius, de Libris recipiendis, two 

1 Abgar V, son of Manou, who reigned in Edessa at the beginning of the Christian 
i connection with this point and with all that concerns the Teaching of Addai, cfr. 


R. Duvat, La Littérature Syrienne, pp. 103-116 (Paris, 1899); cfr. also, ViGouROUX, 
Dictionnaire de la Bible, art. Abgar, col. 37. sa. 


152 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


of its parts, the Epistles of Abgar to Jesus, and of Jesus to 
Abgar, are reckoned among the apocryphal writings. 

‘The last work to be mentioned here is one of a very differ- 
ent character, and, according to the Tubingen school, one of 
incomparably greater importance for the history of the New 
Testament writings. It is known under the name of the 
Recognitions of Clement from its supposed author and from 
the successive recognitions first of his mother, next of his 
brothers, then of his father by St. Clement while travelling 
about with St. Peter. In the form of it which has come 
down to us in a Latin translation by Rufinus (f 410 A.D.), * 
we are told how Clement having lost his parents in early 
childhood was brought up asa rich orphan at Rome; how 
he earnestly searched after that religious truth which he 
could not find in philosophical systems; and how at last he 
heard in the Roman capital of the appearance in Judea of 
a great wonder-worker. He therefore sailed in search of 
Him, but arrived only after the death of Jesus. Having met 
Peter at Caesarea he was instructed and converted by him. 
At Peter’s request, Clement agreed to remain in Palestine 
during a disputation which was soon to take place between 
the Prince of the Apostles and Simon the magician. This 
disputation lasted three days, after which the defeated magi- 
cian took to flight. Peter pursued him, accompanied by Cle- 
ment, and having finally overtaken his adversary, completely 
silenced him after a four days’ disputation. 

It cannot be denied, as Baur and his school pointed out, 
that this romantic story serves only as a framework to 
doctrinal views, and notably to anti-Paulinist tenets. St. 
Paul and his labors are ignored, while St. Peter figures as 
the Apostle of the Jews and the Gentiles alike, and in a 


1 The Latin Text will be foundin Core.irr, PSS. Patres Apostol., vol i., p. 485, sqq.; 
an English translation of it has been published in the Ante-Nicene Library, vol. iii, pp. 


137-471. 


PRINCIPAL APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF NEW TESTAMENT. 153 


parallel narrative of the same story, called the Clementine 
Flomilies, it is clear that under the cloak of Simon the 
magician withstanding Peter to his face, Paul is really in- 
tended by the writer, etc. We must therefore admit that 
the author of the Clementine Recognitions shows a covert 
dislike to the great Apostle of the Gentiles ; but it does not 
follow therefrom, as maintained by Baur, that he is the 
representative of the Jewish-Christian element which was so 
opposed to St. Paul in the earliest days of the Church.'. On 
the contrary, it is beyond doubt, as unbiased historical 
criticism has proved, that the heretical doctrines set forth 
in the Clementines are those of a Jewish sect which developed 
only later and on considerably different lines of thought and 
practice from those of the primitive adversaries of the great 
Apostle.” As a consequence, the theory framed by Baur to 
test the genuineness of our canonical writings by their 
position of antipathy, favor or neutrality toward St. Peter 
and St. Paul, and which rested to a large extent on the 
hypothesis of a very early date for the views in the Clemen- 
tine Recognitions and Homilies had to be, and has actually 
been, given up by unprejudiced scholars. 


§ 3. Apocryphal Epistles. 


1. Correspondence between St. Paul and the 
Corinthians. Leaving aside the apocryphal letters of 
Abgar to Jesus and of Jesus to Abgar, to which reference 
has already been made,* we shall first mention briefly the 
correspondence which did indeed exist between St. Paul 
and the Corinthians,* but of which only unauthentic remains 


1 Cfr. Outlines of New Testament History, Part ii. 

2 Cfr. SALMon, Introduction to the New Testament, p. 15, sqq. (8th edition). 

3 An English translation of these letters is given in the 4 focryphal ees pub: 
lished by B. H. Cowprr, pp. 219, 220, 

# Cfr. I Cor. vii, 13 v, 9. 


{54 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, 


have come down tous. Besides our two canonical Epistles 
to the Corinthians, there are two others extant in some Ar- 
menian MSS., one claiming to be from the faithful of Corinth 
to St. Paul, the other from St. Paul to the Corinthians. ‘The 
former, made up of eighteen verses, denounces to the Apostle 
‘the sinful words of perverse teachers ” who are attempting 
to spread their errors in Corinth, and begs of him that he 
should write or even come to them in order ‘that the folly 
of such men may be made manifest by an open refutation.” 
In the second letter—it is called in the Armenian MSS., the 
“third Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians,” because of 
its place after our canonical Epistles—St. Paul solemnly 
proclaims the right belief against the perverse men who dis- 
turb the faithful of Corinth, condemns their errors, insists 
particularly on the future resurrection of the flesh by means 
of examples drawn from nature and from Holy Writ, and 
concludes by exhorting the Corinthians to drive from among 
them that “ generation of vipers,” those “ children of dragons 
and basilisks.”’ ? 

Of course these letters are spurious: they were unknown 
to the early writers of the Church, and are made up mostly 
of thoughts and expressions borrowed from the genuine 
Epistles of St. Paul. They were clearly suggested by the 
words of our first Epistle to the Corinthians, “ Now con- 
cerning the things of which you wrote ” (chap. vii, 1), and 
“In that letter I wrote to you not to be associated with 
fornicators ” (chap. v, 9); and in the present day their 
genuineness is denied by all.’ 


2. The Epistle to the Laodiceans. This Epistle 
owes also its origin toa passage froma genuine Epistle of St. 


1 The joint translation of these Epistles by Lord Byron and Father Aucher, in 1817, is 
given by STANLEY, Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians, p. 593, sqq. (4th edit.). 

* For the principal grounds for and against this genuineness, see STANLEY, loc. cit., 
p. 591, sq. Cfr. also Gioaa, Introduction to the Epistles of St. Paul, Pp. 27, sqq. 


PRINCIPAL APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF NEW TESTAMENT. 155 


Paul (Coloss. iv, 16), where we read: “ And when this letter 
shall have been read with you, cause that it be read also in 
the church of the Laodiceans: and that you read that which 
is of the Laodiceans.”* It was originally written in Greek, 
but is extant only in a Latin translation, found in several 
MSS. of the Latin Vulgate.” After giving thanks to God 
for the perseverance of the Laodiceans in well-doing, St. 
Paul warns them against the words of seducers. He then 
speaks of his chains, which he rejoices to be laden with for 
the sake of Christ, exhorts them to retain his doctrine “in 
the fear of God,” doing what they know to be in accordance 
with the divine will, and concludes by his usual salutation. 

Some scholars (among whom Saumon, Introduction to 
the New Testament) feel an instinctive repugnance to admit 
that this short and really insignificant letter is referred to in 
so early a document as the Muratorian Canon, and simply 
affirm that St. Jerome (f 420) is the first witness to its ex- 
istence. As long as an Lfzstola ad Laodicenses 1S men- 
tioned as apocryphal in the Canon of Muratori, and as no 
other uncanonical Epistle can be shown to have circulated 
between 170 a.p., the approximate date of that Canon, and 
the time of St. Jerome, it seems to us only natural to admit 
that our extant Epistle to the Laodiceans is identical with 
that which is spoken of in the Muratorian list. But how- 
ever ancient its fabrication, the Epistle has plainly no right 
to be considered as original. Almost all its nineteen verses are 
made up of words borrowed from the Epistles to the Colos- 
sians, Ephesians and Philippians. 


3. Correspondence between St. Bani and Seneca. 
A series of letters which do not exhibit such striking marks 


1 The Greek has “ rhv é« Aaodcxeias” the more probable meaning of which is “ the 
letter written zo Laodicea and sent again /rom Laodicea.” (Wu1INER, Grammar of the 
Idiom of the New Testament, p. 629) (7th edition, Andover, 1877). 

* The Latin Text is given by Westcorrt, in Appendix E, to his History of the Canon 
of the New Testament. 


156 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


of spuriousness were formerly believed to be the genuine 
correspondence between the Apostle of the Gentiles and the 
Roman philosopher, Seneca. It was supposed on the basis 
of some passages of the New Testament which speak of 
St. Paul’s sojourn in Rome’ and of his acquaintance with 
Gallio,” Seneca’s brother, that the pagan moralist was intro- 
duced in the Roman capital to the great Apostle, and that 
our fourteen extant letters are the result of their friendly re- 
lations. It was also added as a confirmation of this view 
that Seneca had certainly come under the influence of 
Christianity, seeing that his genuine works bear the impress 
of evangelical thought and expression, and even contain 
numerous and striking coincidences with the Epistles of St. 
Paul.* Finally, it was stated that St. Jerome in the fourth . 
century of our era speaks of letters exchanged between 
Paul and Seneca,* and that the Epistles which have come 
down to us are identical with them. 

Of course it would be too long to discuss these arguments 
in detail; to show, for instance, by a careful examination of 
the passages appealed to in the works of Seneca, that, de- 
spite their apparent Christian coloring, they are nothing 
but Stoic expressions, whose spirit is very different from the 
spirit of the Gospel.’ Suffice it to say here, that a close ex- 
amination of the fourteen letters supposed to have passed 
between St. Paul and Seneca proves that they are “inane 
and unworthy throughout; that the style of either corre- 
spondent is unlike his genuine writings ; that the relations 
between the two, as there represented, are highly improb- 

1 Acts of the Apostles, xxviii, 30; Philip. i, 13; II Tim. iv, 17. 

2 Acts xviil, 12, sqq. 

3 The passages are carefully pointed out by J. B. Licutroor, St. Paul and Seneca, 
in Dissertations on the Apostolic Age, p. 258, sqq., and in Comm. on Epistle to Philip- 
pians, p. 276, sqq. 

4 St. Jerome, De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis, chap. xii. 


5 This is a conclusion of E. Reuss, in his art. on Seneca, in SCHAFF-HERzoG, Ency 
clopedia of Religious Knowledge. 


PRINCIPAL APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF NEW TESTAMENT. es 


able; and lastly, that the chronological notices (which, how- 
evcr, are absent in some important manuscripts) are wrong 
in almost every instance. 
forged probably in the fourth century of our era, either to 
recommend Seneca to Christian readers or to recommend 
Christianity to students of Seneca, for in several MSS. these 
spurious letters precede the genuine works of the Roman 
philosopher. * 


The whole correspondence was 


§ 4. Apocryphal Apocalypses. 


1. The Revelation of Peter. As there are apocry- 
phal Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, so are there also apocry- 
phal Apocalypses, one of which, the Revelation of Peter, was 
little more than a name till 1886, when nearly half of its 
text was discovered in Egypt, together with the fragment of 
the Gospel of Peter already referred to. Few, if any, apoc- 
ryphal writings have been retained longer in use for public 
services than this Apocalypse or Revelation of Peter, for 
about the middle of the fifth century it was still read on 
Good Friday in some of the churches of Palestine,® and at a 
much later date (ninth century) it appeared still on the list 
of Nicephorus, which was probably made for practical pur- 
poses in the church of Jerusalem. This is indeed a clear 
proof of the popularity of our book, but none whatever of its 
canonicity: if the Muratorian Canon refers really to it, it is 
with a caution, while Eusebius * and Sozomen are most ex. 
plicit in declaring that its spurious and uncanonical char- 
acter has long been recognized in the Christian Church. 

1 J. B. LicutFoor, Dissertations on the Apostolic Age, p. 319. 

2 Cfr. LigHTFoot, loc. cit., p. 318. 

3 SozomeEn, Ecclesiastical History, Book vii, chap. xix. 

* Cfr. James, A Lecture on the Revelation of Peter, p. 46 (London, 1892). This 
valuable little publication of Prof. James contains the text and translation of the newly 


discovered fragment and of the passages already known of the Revelation of Peter. 
5 Cfr. Eusesius, Ecclesiastical History, Book iii, chap. iii. 


158 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


The newly-discovered fragment contains three distinct 
parts. The first and shortest is an eschatological discourse 
of Our Lord after His resurrection. ‘Then comes, at the re- 
quest of Peter, a vision of the heavenly glory bestowed on 
the righteous; finally, the place and various kinds of tor- 
iments reserved for the wicked are described at considerable 
leneth. Ut is ‘trie that the name ot Peter is not» once rox 
plicitly given in the recovered text, but it is certainly im- 
plied, so that the fragment is really a part of the apocryphal 
writing quoted by ancient ecclesiastical writers as “the 
Apocalypse of Peter.” A further and still more convincing 
proof of this is, that a passage occurs in our fragment which 
is practically identical with a quotation from the Apocalypse 
of Peter, by Clement of Alexandria.’ 

As far as can be gathered from the study of all the extant 
fragments of the Revelation of Peter, it seems that its close 
literary resemblance with our second Epistle of St. Peter ” 
shows that its composition was suggested by such passages 
of this canonical Epistle as refer to the day of the Lord and 
to the torments which await the wicked. 


2. The Visiones Pauli. It is also a passage of one 
of our New Testament writings, where St. Paul declares that 
he has been favored with “ visions and revelations of the 
Lord ” (II Cor. xii, 1, sqq.), which led a compiler to write the 
Apocalypse of Paul or Visiones Pauli. ‘The contents of this 
apocryphal book are briefly as follows : Under the guidance 
of an angel St. Paul contemplates first the joy of the holy 
angels who give glory to God because of the pious men who 
spend their life in the fear of the Lord. Next it is given 
him to witness the judgment of both righteous and unright- 


1 Cfr. James, loc. cit., p. 72, sq. 
2 The series of literary resemblances between the second Epistle of St. Peter and the 
Revelation of Peter are given by JAMES, loc. cit., p. 52, sq (note). 


PRINCIPAL APOCRYPHAL BOOKS OF NEW TESTAMENT. 159 


eous immediately after their death. ‘Then comes a vision 
of the heavenly mansions wherein the just enjoy a ten thou- 
sand-fold reward, and this is soon followed by the sight of 
the infernal regions with their awful torments. The book 
concludes with a fresh visit to heaven, where Paul is greeted 
by “ holy Mary, the Mother of the Lord” and by the saintly 
patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament.' 

The perfect orthodoxy of the author of the Vistones Pauli 
cannot be questioned, but such is not the case with his 
originality, despite his pretension to record mysteries re- 
vealed to no one but to the Apostle of the Gentiles. Besides 
our writings of the New Testament, which he naturally utilizes, 
he borrows freely from more ancient apocalypses, among 
which we must reckon ina special manner the Revelation of 
Peter.?,_ Indeed, originality would have been a hard task at 
the late date at which he wrote, viz., during the last years of 
the fourth century : and further, it is not improbable that 
the Apocalypse of Paul was intended from the first to be 
what it soon became afterwards, a work of edification for 
persons leading a religious life,* so that it mattered little 
whether or not it was devoid of originality. 


1 The English translation of this work from the Greek is found in the xvith volume 
of the Ante-Nicene Library (T. T. Clark, Edinburgh). 

2 For resemblances as to thought and expression between the Apocalypses of Peter 
and of Paul see JAMES, !oc. cii., p. 66, sa. 

3 SozoMEN speaks of the Apocalypse of the Apostle Paul as ‘“‘still esteemed by 
irost of the monks ”’ (Ecclesiastical History, Book vii, chap. xix). 





DA iseliees ts GN ID: 


BIBLICAL TEXTUAL CRITICISM. 


SYNOPSIS(ON GHAREER Vit. 


/ 


NATURE AND DIVISIONS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 





I. ( 1. Notion of Biblical criticism. 


Irs NATURE: Q 2. Its constructive and destructive aspects. 





I. Real meaning of the name. 
ot Integrity, 


[ 
2. Problems Authenticity, Ve the Sacred Writ 


HIGHER connected 


with Literary Form, ings. 


Cpiritene Reliability, 


3. Method and general results. 


{ 1. Its starting point: the various readings of the 
Sacred Text. 


2. Materials ( Manuscripts, 
Lis Translations, 
Available : ( Quotations. 
TEXTUAL 
3. Principal rules to determine the relative value of 
CRITICISM: the various readings. 


4. Division: Of the Text. 


History ( Of the principal Versions. 


162 


CHARTER VA: 
NATURE AND DIVISIONS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 
§ 1. Lature of Biblical Criticism. 


1. Notion of Biblical Criticism. The history of the 
Canon which we have sketched out so far proves simply, 
though conclusively, that the Catholic Bible contains none 
but books which, on strictly scientific grounds, have a right 
to belong to the collection of the inspired writings of the 
Old and of the New Testaments. It does not enable us to 
determine either the time and manner of their composition, 
or the extent of correctness with which they have been trans- 
mitted in the course of ages. ‘These are further questions 
which form the special subject-matter of another branch of 
Introduction to the study of Holy Writ, known under the 
name of Brblical Criticism. 

It is indeed true that the ave element peculiar to the 
sacred books does not fall within the range of criticism, but 
it is not so with the 4uman element which they have in com- 
mon with other literary productions. Though inspired and 
divine, they bear the unmistakable impress of the time, 
place, literary methods, etc., of their respective authors, and 
to all these literary features the biblical scholar may rever- 
ently yet scientifically apply the canons of criticism which 
are in vigor, to ascertain and determine the true origin and 
character of ancient writings. Again, though watched over 
in a special manner by divine Providence in the course of 
ages, the inspired books of the Canon have been transcribed 

163 


164 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


during many centuries by all manner of copyists whose 
ignorance and carelessness they still bear witness to, and it 
is only proper that we should have recourse to the art of 
criticism in order to eliminate the textual errors which can 
still be discovered, and restore the sacred text as far as 
possible to its genuine form. 


2. Constructive and Destructive Aspects of 
Biblical Criticism. The foregoing remarks show plainly 
that the ultimate aim of Biblical Criticism is no other than 
to secure results of a positive character, viz., to ascertain the 
real author of a book or of a part of a book, to point out its 
special literary form, to vindicate its reliability, to determine 
accurately the primitive reading of a passage, etc. As any 
other branch of human science, this part of Biblical Intro- 
duction gathers up data, ascertains facts, builds up theories, 
imparts accurate information concerning the questions it 
inquires into, and in many other ways contributes positively 
to the increase of man’s knowledge. We must grant, how- 
ever, that side by side with, and indeed because of its 
constructive aim and method, Biblical Criticism has also a 
destructive aspect. To reach scientific truth it has, in con- 
nection with several points, to put aside time-honored 
theories which do not tally with recently-ascertained facts. 
Again, through lack of documents, or because of insufficient 
examination of those newly discovered, or for other reasons, | 
it has often to be satisfied with stating only negative con- 
clusions. At other times, all that it can offer as a substitute 
for the positive but erroneous explanations which were 
readily accepted as true in the past, consists in conjectural 
or more or less probable solutions of difficult but very im- 
portant problems, and in this manner, also, Biblical Criticism 
seems to do destructive rather than constructive work. Yet 
even this destructive work of Biblical Criticism is not car 


NATURE AND DIVISIONS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 165 


ried on for its own sake, but rather with a view to clear the 
ground, lay down deeper and more solid foundations for a 
new and more substantial structure, or simply to remodel 
and strengthen parts of the old edifice of scriptural science. 
In short, the destructive process of Biblical Criticism is 
subordinate and subservient to its subsequent and con- 
structive purposes. 


§ 2. Lhe Higher Criticism. 


I. Real Meaning of the Name. _ It cannot be denied 
that in our century, the destructive work of Biblical Criticism 
has been carried on mostly in that department of it which 
is usually designated under the name of Hagher Criticism. 
It is apparently also in this department that less constructive 
work has been achieved, or at least has become known to 
the public at large. Again, Rationalistic scholars have been 
foremost in claiming its verdict in favor of their irreligious 
notions and of their negative conclusions. It is not sur- 
prising, therefore, that in the eyes of many the name of 
Higher Criticism is nothing but a high-sounding word 
under which lurk the aim and principles of unbelief. In 
reality, the name is not an arrogant and self-laudatory title. 
It simply suggests that the topics dealt with in this depart- 
ment of Biblical Criticism are of greater importance than 
those which are examined in another department of this 
branch of study, known as TZextwal or Lower Criticism. 
While the latter, in its efforts to restore the sacred text to 
its genuine form, examines and rejects erroneous readings 
and points out the primitive reading of individual passages, 
the former rises higher when it endeavors by the careful 
study of whole books or parts of books to determine their 
genuineness and other literary characteristics. The name 
of Higher Criticism is not therefore a cloak which covers 


166 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Rationalistic views and methods. It was employed a cen- 
tury ago by Jahn, an eminent Catholic professor in the 
University of Vienna, who declared openly that as regards 
“the books of the Old Testament this kind of criticism is 


epee 


absolutely necessary ;”’* and ina more recent period, Catholic 
scholars in France, Germany, and England have used the 
name of Higher Criticism freely and in a manner which does 


not imply the least disparagement. 


2. Problems of the Higher Criticism. Although 
the name of this higher branch of criticism is of compara- 
tively recent origin, the problems it agitates are of old stand- 
ing. These are the great questions of integrity, authenticity, 
literary form, and reliability, which Zzferary Criticism has 
dealt with for centuries, in reference to ordinary ancient 
writings, but which Christian scholars, owing chiefly to their 
deep reverence for the written Word of-God, felt not at 
liberty to examine in connection with the sacred books of 
the Old and the New Testaments.’ In the eyes of their 
faith, it was sufficient that a book of the Bible should ap- 
parently claim to have been written by Moses or Solomon, 
etc., for admitting at once this authorship and for taking as 
granted that the authorship extended to all the integrant 
parts of the book in question. On account of the same 
implicit belief in the Word of God, it never occurred to their 
minds that the reliability of the sacred records could be 
questioned, and consequently either they did not notice the 
variations in detail which are found in the Gospels for in- 
stance, or, if they noticed them, they were not at a loss to 

1 Jaun, An Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 167 (English Trans].). He 
speaks of ‘ the books of the Old Testament,’’ because his work bears only on this first 
part of the Bible. 

2 Of course, the common teaching of the schools about the authorship of the sacred 
books influenced Christian scholars in this connection ; but this common teaching itself 


had been founded mostly on passages of Holy Writ, or at least on the titles inscribed to 
the inspired writings. 


NATURE AND DIVISIONS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 167 


point out many different ways in which the several accounts 
could be harmonized. As long as they knew by the in- 
fallible teaching of the Church that all the books of the 
Bible were inspired, it imported little in their eyes to deter- 
mine what was the special literary form of any one of them. 
Finally, they took itas a matter of course that a book should 
be considered as pure history whenever it wore the appear- 
ance of a historical record, as strict prophecy if it apparently 
referred to future events, etc.’ 

It is true, as we stated in our Prolegomena to the present 
work,’ that, as early as the second part of the seventeenth 
century, the French Oratorian, Richard Simon (1638-1712) 
endeavored to call the attention of biblical scholars to these 
ereat questions of Literary Criticism in connection with the 
Bible, dealing himself with them in his masterly /7stozres 
Critiques du Vieux Testament, du Texte et des Versions du 
Nouveau Testament. But plainly the time had not yet come 
for such scientific investigation of the problems which belong 
to Higher Criticism, and, in consequence, both his method 
and conclusions, strenuously opposed at first, were soon after- 
wards set aside. Only in the nineteenth century have Chris- 
tian apologists fully realized the importance of dealing with 
the delicate problems involved in a critical study of the 
integrity, authenticity, literary form, and reliability of the 
sacred writings, and have seen their way to harmonize with 
their firm belief in the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, a 
manner of study hitherto applied only to merely human 
compositions. 


3. Method and Principal Results of the Higher 


1 Of course, we do not intend to deny that some of the problems now dealt with by 
the Higher Critics had been already examined scientifically by Origen, Eusebius and St. 
Jerome, but after these great Christian writers, the frame of mind above descnbed was 
tertainly prevalent. 

* Cfr. Prolegomena, § 2, p. 18. 


168 GENERAL INIRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, 


Criticism. In the treatment of these important and diff- 
cult problems, Higher Criticism uses principally, but not ex- 
clusively, internal evidence. It starts from the unquestion- 
able principle that every literary production bears upon it 
the traces of the time and place of its composition, and re- 
flects the peculiar frame of mind, style, and literary methods 
of its author. Whence it proceeds to a minute analysis of 
the book or part of book under consideration, to gather up 
its peculiarities of style, the leading views and feelings of its 
author, its references to past or present events, its geograph- 
ical and chronological details, its religious, moral or po- 
litical conceptions, its grammatical forms or lexical peculiar- 
ities, any traces of compilation, such as titles of pre existing 
collections, duplicate accounts of the same event, etc., etc., 
in a word, all the data which will furnish a solid and exten- 
sive basis for comparison between the work under consider- 
ation and any other production studied in a like manner and 
ascribed to the same author or to the same period. Next 
comes the all-important work of comparison, which at times 
can be pursued without much technical knowledge, as for in- 
stance in the case of the book of Psalms, or of the book of 
Proverbs, but which at other times is so delicate as to re- 
quire all the knowledge and skill of the expert. 

Of course, in following this line of internal evidence, the 
higher critic is welcome to utilize whatever data or guidance 
he may derive from the labors of those who have gone be- 
fore him. In fact, the unprejudiced scholar is only too glad 
to avail himself of the information given by external evi- 
dence whenever he can satisfy himself that the testimony as 
to the authorship of a book or part of a book goes back near 
enough to the time of its composition. Again, he does not 
simply take into account the positive testimony of tradition, 
but even goes as far as to examine carefully the silence of 
authors either contemporary or little posterior to the writer 


NATURE AND DIVISIONS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM, 169 


whose name is inscribed at the head of a sacred book.’ In 
these, and in many other ways, he makes the most of all the 
data supplied by external evidence, and there is no doubt 
that when independent inquiries into the centents of a work 
have led him to conclusions concordant with those of tradi- 
tion, oral or written, he has a perfect right to point to the lat- 
ter as a powerful argument in favor of the validity of his 
method and of the accuracy of his inferences. 

Through the constant and painstaking application of its 
theoretical principles and practical rules to the examination 
of the inspired writings, Higher Criticism has reached con- 
clusions whose scientific value has been tested over and over 
again by scholars of different countries and of every shade 
of thought and belief,” and in consequence the critical views 
which underwent successfully this ordeal are generally con- 
sidered as settled. To this first general result obtained by 
the Higher Criticism may be added another of much greater 
importance. We refer to the respectful attitude which, during 
the last part of the nineteenth century, has prevailed through- 
out the world with regard to the Bible and biblical topics. 
While in bygone days the questions relative to the author- 
ship, reliability, etc., of Holy Writ were too often treated in 
an off-hand manner, in our day even the most declared 
enemies of Revelation feel bound to treat of them with that 
scientific care which alone can secure them a _ hearing. 
Again, in presence of this fair and scientific spirit of investi- 
gation, conservative scholars understood that, on the one 
hand, they could not refuse decently to meet their opponents 


1 For a detailed and careful statement of the manner in which the argument ex 
silentio should be handled, see Chas. A. Briccs, General Introduction to the Study of 
Holy Scripture, pp. ror-108. 

2 In the following remarks we mention only the more important general results ob- 
tained by the Higher Criticism; its particular conclusions about the individual books or 
parts of books as regards genuineness, integrity, literary form and reliability will be 
stated and examined in forthcoming volumes on SZecéa/ Introduction to the Old and to 
the New Testaments. 


170 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


on their own grounds, and that, on the other hand, the old 
arguments drawn almost exclusively from external evidence 
could be only of little use against positions which claimed to 
be based on a minute and thorough discussion of the data 
supplied by the sacred books themselves. ‘Thus were they 
led to pay more attention to internal evidence and to take it 
into fuller account in its bearing on their own traditional 
views, whether—as it did at times—it proved serviceable for 
strengthening their positions, or—as happened at other times 
——it required that they should give them up or modify them 
to a considerable extent. At any rate, it was good for 
men of that school that they should be practically com- 
pelled to meet the real issues of the day on grounds 
accepted by all, and in a manner which proves con- 
clusively that the books of the Bible need not to be dealt 
with in an exceptional way to vindicate their genuineness or 
their reliability. Finally, a last general result to be mentioned 
here of the application of the rules of Zzterary Criticism 
to our inspired writings consists in the fact that the historical 
circumstances of their origin and the literary methods fol- 
lowed in their composition are now realized with a distinct- 
ness and accuracy unknown to past ages, and really of the 
greatest use for their right interpretation. 


§ 3. Biblical Textual Criticism. 


1. Its Starting Point. Instead of beginning with the 
contents of the sacred books with a view to ascertain the 
method of their composition, which is the starting-point and 
special purpose of the Higher Criticism, the second and 
lower branch of Biblical Criticism starts with the various 
readings which exist in the old manuscripts of the inspired 
writings as in those of all ancient works, and aims at restor- 
ing the sacred text to its genuine form. ‘This department 


NATURE AND DIVISIONS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. 171 


of Biblical Criticism is therefore justly called Zextwal Criti- 
cism, inasmuch as it deals all the time with the words whose 
collection and combination constitute the fext of Holy Writ. 
Its work does not indeed rise as high as that which is car- 
ried on by the //zgher Criticism, and on that account this 
branch is sometimes designated under the name of Lower 
Criticism; yet, in so far as it aims at supplying the inter- 
preter with the original words of the Bible, and unquestion- 
ably succeeds in doing so in a large number of cases, it has 
a considerable importance in the study of the inspired 
books. In point of fact, Zex/wa/ Criticism forms nowadays 
the subject-matter of an entire part of the General Introduc- 
tion to the Sacred Scriptures. ) 


2. Materials Available for Textual Criticism. 
As might naturally be expected, the line of evidence fol- 
lowed by Textual Criticism is conditioned to a large extent 
by the purpose it has in view. As it aims at deciding which 
of the various readings of a passage is the primitive one, it 
has to consult the sources which contain those textual varia- 
tions, to weigh their relative authority, to eliminate readings 
which have less to recommend them, and finally to adopt 
those which are deemed original. It is plain therefore that 
Textual Criticism must appeal principally to external evi- 
dence, drawing its materials not so much from the contents 
of a book of Holy Writ as from copies of it or from other 
documents which may testify either for or against a par- 
ticular reading. 

There are three external sources from which Textual Crit- 
icism derives aid in ascertaining the changes which have 
been made in the original text of the Bible. The first con- 
sists in the Manuscripts or ancient copies of the sacred 
text, which are of the most direct, if not always of the 
greatest, help, inasmuch as they supply either the very words 


172 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


of the primitive reading or expressions closely allied to 
them, because belonging to the same language as the orig- 
inal. ‘The second source of information ccmprises the 
Ancient Verszons or translations of the Holy Scriptures, 
whose testimony is at times of much greater value than even 
that of the extant manuscripts, because though written in a 
different language from the primitive text, they may have 
been made from manuscripts older and better than those 
that have come down to us. The third external source 
from which materials may be drawn includes the Quofations of 
Holy Writ wherever found, whether in the other books of the 
Bible, or in the writings of the Fathers, or in the paraphrases 
or commentaries of interpreters. This is also a rich and 
valuable source of information, especially when the quota- 
tions are explicit, literal, made directly from the original 
text, or from a very ancient translation of it. 

As may well be supposed, each of these great sources 
does not supply the same quantity or quality of materials for 
the pursuance of Textual Criticism: both the number and the 
value of the materials available vary with the different books, 
and in general those which are connected with the text of 
the New Testament are more numerous and reliable than 
those which bear on the Scriptures of the Old Testament. 

But besides this external or documentary (as it 1s also 
called) evidence, Textual Criticism uses zz/erna/ evidence 
as a subsidiary means to reach the primitive reading of the 
sacred text. This secondary source of information sup- 
plies more or less probable readings derived either from the 
immediate context, the peculiar manner of thought or ex- 
pression of an author, which make it likely that he used this 
or that particular reading, or from the general methods of 
copyists, the well-known habits of a special transcriber 


1 They are, well though briefly, described by Briccs, General Introduction to the Study 
of Holy Scripture, p. 88, sq. 


NATURE AND DIVISIONS OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM. Fs 


which make it likely that the present words point to this 
rather than to that primitive reading. 


3. Principal Rules to Determine the Relative 
Value of the Various Readings. When the various 
readings regarding a passage of the Old or of the New Tes- 
tament have been gathered, there remains for the biblical 
critic to determine, by the unbiased and skilful application 
of the usual canons of Textual Criticism, which is the prim- 
itive reading. The principal of these canons which are 
applicable to the criticism of the text of both Testaments ' 
may be briefly stated as follows : 

(1) Every element of evidence must be allowed its full 
weight of authority: this is a self-evident principle; yet it 
has sometimes been lost sight of by eminent critics ; 

(2) Great weight must be given to the testimony of in- 
dependent witnesses; their agreement in favor of a reading 
plainly outweighs the concordant testimony given by wit- 
nesses of one and the same class, or coming from one local- 
ity, although these may be numerically superior ; 

(3) ‘‘ The ancient reading is generally the reading of the 
more ancient manuscripts,” * and cvleris paribus is generally 
preferable ; 

(4) Proclivi lectioni prestat ardua: the more difficult read- 
ing is more likely to be correct, owing to the tendency of 
transcribers to alter the text from something which they do 
not understand into something which they do ; 

(5) Brevior lectio preferenda verbosiori: this rule rests on 
the well-known tendency of copyists to insert in the text 
marginal notes, glosses, etc., rather than to omit words 
already contained in the manuscript before them ; 

(6) The reading which lies at the root of all the variations 

1 The special principles of Criticism for the Old Testament are given by S. Davipson, 


A Treatise on Biblical Criticism, vol. i, p. 386, sq. (Boston, 1853). 
2 HAMMOND, Textual Criticism of the New Testament, p. 97. 


I74 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


and best accounts for them is to be preferred ; it has clearly 
the best chance to be the original reading; at any rate, it is 
anterior to the others.’ 


4. Division of Textual Criticism. The questions of 
Textual Criticism which are usually examined in Treatises 
on General Introduction to the Study of the Bible, may con- 
veniently be divided into those which bear directly on the 
Original Text and those which refer to its ancient translations. 
As these two sets of questions will be treated in the follow- 
ing pages on the same historical lines as those on which we 
pursued our study of the Canon of Holy Writ, this second 
part of our work will contain two great Divisions, called 
respectively: Zhe History of the Text, and The History of the 
Principal Versions of the Old and of the New Testament. 

1 The special canons of Criticism for the New Testament will be found in ScRIvENrER, 
A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, 4th edit., 1894, vol. ii, p. 


244, 8qq.; cfr. also, Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, 
vol. ii, Introduction, p. 19, sqq. 


SYNOPSIS .OU-CHAPTER VIII. 
History OF THE ‘TEXT OF THE OLD ‘TESTAMENT. 


Section L. Description of the Original Text. 





Ue 
LANGUAGE 1. Most of the books written in Hebrew (minor parts 
of some in Aramaic), 
OF THE 4 
ORIGINAL 2. A few books composed in Greek. 
Text. [ 
. Not the primitive language of humanity. 
II, 


. One of the Semitic languages (number and charac- / 
THE HEBREW teristics of the Semitic languages). 


LANGUAGE: . Historical sketch of the Hebrew as a living lan- 


guage. 








stone and Siloam). 


THE HEBREW - 


Ist Period: Archaic Form (inscriptions of the Moabite 
2d Period: Aramaic Form (its introduction by Es- 


dras). 
WRITING: 
3d Period: The square character. 
IV. (1. The roll (Volumen). 


‘Tur Hesrew 4 2. The Hebrew orthography. 


TEXT. 3. The unpointed text. 
aie 


FIRST DIVISION. 
THE HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE BIBLE. 





GOAP EER ay LIT 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


SECTION I. DESCRIPTION OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT. 


§ 1. Language of the Original Text. 


1. Most of the Books of the Old Testament Writ- 
ten in Hebrew. Most of the canonical books of the Old 
Testament were originally written and have come down to 
us in a language which is called the Aebrew, because it was 
that of the Hebrews * or Israelites in the days of their national 
independence. ‘This is the case with all the proto-canonical 
books composed before Our Lord’s time, with the exception 
of Jeremias x, 11; Esdras iv, 8—vi, 18; vil, 12-26; Daniel ii, . 
4—-vul, which are written in Aramaic.” The deutero-canoni- 
cal book of Ecclesiasticus was also primitively composed in 
Hebrew * as is clearly proved by the Prologue to our Greek 


1 Of the several explanations of the Gentilic "2Y the derivation from q3Y a country 


on the other side (of the Euphrates) with the derivative suffix? is the most probable 
ny 


(Gen. xiv, 13). Cfr. Gzsenius, Thesaurus Philologicus Criticus lingue Hebraic (sub 
voc.); Dr WeTTE, Introduction to the Old Test., vol. i, Appendix D. (Engl. Transl. by 
Theodore Parker) ; Jas. Hastincs, Bible Dictionary, vol. ii, art. Hebrew, p. 325, sq. 
? These minor parts were formerly, but incorrectly, said to be written in Chaldee. 

5 Cfr. the valuable edition of the newly discovered Hebrew fragments of Ecclesiasti- 
cus by CowLey, NEUBAUER, and Driver (Oxford), and the textual study of these frag- 
ments by Abbé J. Touzarp, in La Revue Biblique Internationale (Oct., 1897; Jan., 
1898). 


176 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 177 


translation of Ecclesiasticus. Even most of the other 
deutero-canonical writings of the Old Testament, viz., 
Tobias, Judith, Baruch, and the first book of the Machabees, 
and the deutero-canonical parts of Daniel and Esther, were 
very likely written in Hebrew, although they are no longer 
extant in that language. Hence it may be truly said that 
the language of the original text of the Old Testament is 
the Hebrew. 


2. A Few Books Composed in Greek. There are 
two books, however, whose primitive language was certainly 
not the Hebrew but the Greek: these are the deutero-canon- 
ical books of Wisdom and second of Machabees. ‘They, of 
course, belong to the Canon of the Old Testament just as 
well as any other books contained therein; yet, on account 
of their late date of composition, and especially because of 
the literary kind of Greek in which they are written, and 
which has so much resemblance with the Greek of the 
New Testament, the treatment of their origin language 
may better be taken up in connection with the questions 
which gather around the language of the New Testament 
writings. This applies also naturally to the other deutero- 
canonical books or parts of books which we now possess only 
in a Greek translation, and in consequence we shall speak 
only here of the Hebrew as the original language of the Old 
Testament.’ 


§ 2. The Hebrew Language. 


1. Hebrew not the Primitive Language of 
Humanity. It would be sheer waste of time at the pres- 
ent day, to repeat and refute the arguments set forth for- 


1The Aramaic portions of the proto-canonical books are too small to require a 
special treatment, and besides, the leading features of the Aramaic and its influence 
upon the Hebrew will be sufficiently mentioned in connection with various topics soon 
to be dealt with. 

12 


178 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


merly to prove that the Hebrew language as known to us in 
the sacred writings of the Old Testament, is the original 
language of mankind. Any one ever so little acquainted 
with the earliest forms of biblical Hebrew, and with the 
most elementary laws of linguistic growth, knows it for a 
fact that the oldest Hebrew contained in the Bible bears 
upon its face the unmistakable traces of a long previous 
development. Not only had human language long ceased 
to be made up exclusively of monosyllabic roots, but it had 
already gone through the stage of connecting monosyllables 
with each other under -a common accent, and had reached 
the last stage of linguistic development in which polysyl- 
labic roots appear modified through internal inflection.’ 
Again, it seems very probable that a whole family (the 
Aryan) of languages cannot be derived from the Hebrew 
idiom, or even from the whole family of languages to which 
tue Hebrew belongs. Hence we should infer—unless in- 
deed we reject the primitive unity of mankind and of human 
language—that the common origin of these great families of 
languages is to be traced back to an older language than 
the Hebrew in its most elementary form.’ Finally, phi- 
lology has. proved that the Hebrew is not the most ancient 
even relatively to the other languages of the Semitic family 
to which it belongs. It is no wonder, therefore, that the 
old preconceived notions about the sacred language of 
the Old Testament as the primitive tongue of humanity are 
now universally given up. 


2. Hebrew one of the Semitic Languages. The 
Hebrew language belongs to a great family of languages 


1 For details concerning the three stages of zsolation, agglutination and inflection, 
here referred to, cfr. HovELAcqug, The Science of Language, chaps. iii-v; Lotsy, 
Histoire Critique du Texte et des Versions de la Bible, p. 13, sqq. (Enseignement 
Biblique, Jan.-Feb., 1892). 

2 Cfr. Lorsy, ibid, p. 16, 25. See. also, GEsENtus, Hebrew Grammar (Kautzsh, 26th 
edit.), English transl. by Collins and Cowley, p. 4, sqq. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 179 


in Western Asia, designated under the name of Sem¢ic, be- 
cause spoken originally by all the descendants of Sem.’ 
The better known of these languages may be divided into 
four groups, as follows 7 (1) The Southern or Arabic group, 
made up of the classical literary language of the Arabs 
(such as found in the Koran), and of the modern vulgar 
Arabic, together with the old southern Arabic preserved 
only in the Sabean or Himyaric inscriptions of the penin- 
sula of Arabia, and its offshoots, the Ethiopic or Ge’ez in 
Abyssinia; (2) the astern or Assyrian group, which com- 
prises the Babylonian and Assyrian, the ancient languages of 
the valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris, whose knowledge 
is of invaluable help to biblical scholars ; (3) the Western or 
Chanaanite group, to which belongs the biblical Hebrew 
in its various forms and with its various descendants (the 
New Hebrew in the Mishnah, and the Rabbinic); also the Phee- 
nician, together with the Punic (in Carthage and its colonies) 
and the various remains of the Chanaanite dialects; (4) the 
Northern or Aramaic group, subdivided into the Eastern 
Aramaic or Syriac and the Western or Palestinian branches, 
both of which are of great importance. ‘To the latter be- 
long the Aramaic portions of the Old Testament, the Sa- 
maritan and a considerable part of the later Jewish literature ; 
to the former, several ancient versions of the Old and New 
Testaments, a large number of early apocryphal or pseud- 
epigraphic writings, and a very extensive Christian literature 
of a later date.’ 

All these languages in their several degrees are of special 
use in understanding the original text of the Old Testa- 
ment, for the simple reason that differently from the Indo- 

1 Cfr. Gen. x, 21, sqq. 
2 Cfr. Lorsy, ibid, p. 25, sqq; W. WriGuT, Lectures on the Comparative Grammar of 
the Semitic Languages, chap. ii; Briccs, General Introduction to the Study of Holy 


Scripture, p. 45 sqq. and the literature he refers to in footnotes. The Arabic and 
Syriac are still living languages. 


180 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Germanic or Aryan languages,’ they exhibit the same 
general features as the Hebrew of the Bible. ‘The principal 
characteristics of the Semitic family in its present sone 
refer to both vocabulary and grammatical structure. 

As regards vocabulary, we may notice: (1) the dissyllabic 
nature of the roots usually made up of three consonants, 
the accompanying vowels having no radical value; (2) the 
substantial identity of the triliteral roots, subject, however, 
to certain consonantal permutations; (3) the almost com- 
plete absence of compounds both in the noun (except in 
proper names) and in the verb; (4) the fact that almost all 
words are derived from their roots in definite patterns as regu- 
lar as those of grammatical inflection ; (5) the concrete, and, 
as it were, material character of the roots in their origin and 
usually also in their development, which makes the expres. 
sion of intellectual ideas necessarily metaphorical. 

As regards grammatical structure, the Semitic family is 
also distinguished from the Indo-Germanic languages by 
features common to its various members. We may notice 
in particular (1) peculiar gutturals of different grades among 
the consonants; (2) the expression of the different shades 
of thought through internal inflection, that is, through the 
doubling of the radical consonants or the change of vowels 
proceeding from the three primary sounds, a, 7, ~,; (3) the 
fact that the noun has only two genders (masc. and fem.), 
and the verb (developed from nominal forms) no real tenses, 
but two tense-forms, the perfect and the imperfect, which 
are used according as the speaker contemplates the action 
expressed by the verb either as complete or as still in process ; 
(4) the use of appended suffixes to denote the possessive 
pronouns with a substantive, or the accusative of a personal 


1 This family of languages bounds the Semitic groups on the East and North. It 
reaches from India to the limits of Western Europe, and includes the Sanscrit. Old and 
New Persian, Greek, Latin, Slavonic, Gothic, and the other German languages. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 181 


pronoun with a verb; (5) the expression of the genitive re- 
lation by what is called construction or annexation ; (6) the 
small number of particles, and the extreme simplicity with 
which propositions are subordinated and which deprives the 
Semitic style of lengthened periods, reducing it to a series of 
short clauses united by the simple conjunction avd.’ 

Such are the principal characteristics of the Semitic 
languages which, whilst differentiating them from any other 
great family of languages, unite them to one another as 
closely as those of a sub-group (the Teutonic,’ for instance) 
of the Indo-German family are united among themselves. 


3. Historical Sketch of the Hebrew as a Living 
Language. As might well be supposed from the many 
essential features which are common to the members of the 
Semitic family, the languages of which it is made up may be 
traced back to a common centre, which is most likely the 
region to the northeast of Arabia, near the Persian gulf 
and toward the old mouth of the Tigris and the Euphrates. 
It is from this wide district that, according to ancient tradi- 
tions referred to by Herodotus (Book i, chap. i), the Cha- 
naanites had come to settle on the Mediterranean shores. It 
is also from that region, from: ‘“ Ur of the Chaldees,” that 
later on Abraham 3 represented in the book of Genesis 
(xi, 31) as starting northward for Mesopotamia, and thence 
southwestward for the land of Chanaan. Whether this 
great ancestor of the Hebrew nation brought along with 
him from beyond the Euphrates the Hebrew idiom, or bor- 
rowed it from the Chanaanites after his arrival in their 

1 Cfr.W. R. Smirn, art. Hebrew Language and Literature in Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica (gth edit.); see, also, GesEenrus-Kaurzsu, Hebrew Grammar, 26th edit , English 
translation by Collins and Cowley, p. 3, sq. It should be noted, however, that classical 
Arabic is an important exception as regards the absence of periodic structure in Semitic 
languages. 


2 The Teutonic sub-group includes the Gothic, Old Norse, High and Low German 
(see HovELacqug, The Science of Language, pp. 252-268). 


182 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


country has been much discussed. It would be too long to 
detail here the grounds which make the former view very 
probable,’ and besides, whatever opinion be adopted, it re- 
mains true that the historical origin of the Hebrew language, 
as far as it can now be reached, goes back to the early 
movements of the Semitic tribes. 

As regards the historical developments of literary Hebrew, 
it must be confessed that we do not possess sufficient data 
to describe them with anything like detail and accuracy: 
the documents are few, their date is often not fully ascer- 
tained, the vocalic element whence dialects arise usually is 
not written, the vocabulary and syntax depend to a large 
extent on the manner of individual writers whatever their 
century, and again, authors belonging to a period when the 
language is in decadence or has already ceased to be spoken, 
may copy successfully the style of the golden age. For 
these and other similar reasons, it is now impossible to do 
more than to give an imperfect sketch of the historical 
developments of the Hebrew language. 

It would seem that during the most remote period of 
Hebrew literary composition, the written differed but little 
from the spoken language. ‘This is the general conclusion 
to which point the oldest songs * imbedded in our Pentateuch 
and in the book of Judges, and extracted mostly from an 
ancient book entitled:Z%e Book of the Wars of Vahweh.* 
Composed near the events which they celebrate, these 
poetical pieces are marked by that terseness and vigor of 


1 For these grounds see Lorisy, Hist. du Texte et des Versions de la Bible, p. 35; 
W. R. Smiru, art. Hebrew language and literature in Encyclopedia Britannica (oth 
edit.); Briaas, Introduction to the Study of Holy Scripture, p. 52. 

2 The Semitic proper names of men and towns found in the Egvptian inscriptions of 
Thothmes ITT, or in the Tell-el-Amarna tablets, prove only that long centuries before 
what has been considered as the golden age of the Hebrew, viz., the time of David and 
Solomon, that language had been already fixed in its essential features. 

3'This is the correct pronunciation of the personal name of the God of Israel; we 
shall henceforth use it instead of the conventional form ‘‘ Jehovah.’’ 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 183 


expression, by that vividness, not to say rudeness, of im- 
agery and conception which bespeak the popular language 
of the time, and which, much more than either vocabulary 
or syntax, Characterize the primitive period of Hebrew 
literature. In point of fact, the vocabulary and syntax of 
these popular songs are well nigh identical with those of 
writings belonging to a later date. ‘This is also the con- 
clusion suggested by the literary characteristics of the oldest 
-historical parts of the Pentateuch, Judges, and Samuel, 
wherein may still be found, of course in due proportion, the 
same concision of expression, the same vigor and simplicity 
of grammatical structure, together with the same lexical and 
syntactical features.’ 

Gradually, however, Hebrew literature divests itself of this 
popular garb, and certain Psalms, the book of Job (except 
the speeches of Eliu), some sections in the book of Proverbs, 
Amos, Joel, Osee, Isaias and Micheas, whilst exhibiting pretty 
much the same characteristics as older writings, are com- 
posed in a more literary Hebrew ; the art of composition is 
~ more apparent, and the style, though nervous and simple, is 
more easy and harmonious. 

The distinction between the language of the people and 
that of literature is especially manifest at the end of the 
seventh century B.c. In their popular addresses, the 
prophets Jeremias and Sophonias speak the language of the 
multitude, that is, a language which had lost much of its 
ancient concision and vigor, and even Ezechiel, who is more 
of a writer than of a public speaker, employs new words 
and constructions which betray the influence of the Aramaic 
upon the idiom of the people. This decay of the popular 

1 Tn the foregoing remarks we do not refer to the 4g.2? portions of the Pentateuch, 
because the technical language of law is everywhere and at every period naturally archaic 
in its stereotyped formulas. Nor do we allude to the period of Israel’s sojourn in Egypt, 


because the Hebrew language seems to have been but little influenced by the Egyptian 
beyond the adoption of a few Egyptian terms. 


184 ‘GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


tongue is all the more noticeable because writers contem- 
porary with Jeremias, such as Nahum and Habacuc, and post- 
exilic writers such as certain Psalmists and authors of Prov- 
erbs, possess a style which in many ways resembles that 
of the eighth century. It seems clear, however, that this 
comparative perfection of writers so late in date is due to 
efforts to imitate the best style of bygone days, for in point 
of fact, most writings posterior to the Babylonian captivity 
betray the great influence exercised upon them by the popular 
idiom which gradually melts away into the Aramaic.’ 

This transformation of the Hebrew into the Aramaic was 
slowly, insensibly effected.amid the peculiar circumstances 
brought about by the Babylonian captivity. ‘The poor and 
scanty Jewish element left in Palestine during the captivity, 
spoke, it is true, Aramaic, or at least a very corrupted form 
of Hebrew at the time of the return, but it was not probably 
so with the bulk of those who came back from Babylon. 
Allowed to live in compact groups in their land of exile, know- 
ing that their captivity would soon come to an end, deeply 
attached to the country and traditions of their ancestors, the 
exiled Jews who, after the short period of the captivity, chose 
to return to Palestine, had most likely preserved, together 
with their faith, the language of their nation. It is therefore 
very probable that the oracles of Aggeus, Zachary and 
Malachy were delivered from the first in the Hebrew in 
which they have come downto us. Nehemias made supreme 
but vain efforts to bring about a reaction among the Jews 
against their total adoption of the Aramaic.” _ Hebrew soon 
ceased to be the popular idiom, and simply survived as a 
literary language greatly influenced by, sometimes mixed 


1 This is the case not only with Daniel and Esdras, but also with Ecclesiastes, Chron- 
icles, Esther, etc. Of course, the approximate date of these various writings will be 
carefully examined in our S#ecza/ Introduction to the Old Testament. 

2 Nehemias, xill., 24, sq. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 185 


with, the spoken language of the time, as may be seen, -for 
instance, in the books of Daniel and Esdras.’ 


§ 3. Lhe Hebrew Writing. 


1. First Period: The Archaic Form. As the Hebrew 
language belongs to the Semitic family, so does its writing 
belong to the Semitic alphabets. In its oldest form it was 
unquestionably the common Semitic character evolved from 
an old Hieratic Egyptian script, and used alike, in ancient 
times, by the Moabites, Hebrews, Aramezans and Pheenicians. 
The oldest monuments of this alphabet—usually designated 
under the name of the Phcenician alphabet—are the great 
inscription of Mesa, King of Moab, discovered in 1868, and 
two fragments of bronze vessels obtained from Cyprus in 
1876 and inscribed with dedications to Baal Lebanon. Both 
go back to the ninth century B.c.? and exhibit those char- 
acters which till 1880 were supposed to have been in use by 
the Israelites in writing Hebrew at a very early date. This 
supposition was positively confirmed by the accidental dis- 
covery in Jerusalem, in 1880, of the famous Siloam inscrip- 
tion engraved in a recess of a tunnel under the ridge of 
Ophel and bringing water to the pool of Siloam. This 
Hebrew inscription records in six lines the construction of the 
tunnel ; and its writing, though later in date than that of the 
Moabite stone—it belongs probably to the time of Ezechias 3 
(727-698 B.c.)—is clearly of the same type. 

The special interest which attaches to this old character 
of the Hebrew writing, is derived from the fact that it must 


1 Cfr. Lotsy, Histoire du Texte et des Versions de la Bible, pp. 37-56 ; GESENIUS- 
Kautzsu, Hebrew Grammar (transl, by Collins and Cowley), pp. 8-17, and authors 
therein referred to. 

? Some suppose, however, that the Cypriote inscription is the older of the two by fully 
acentury. Cfr. Plates i and ii, at the end of this volume. 

3 Cfr. IV Kings xx, 20 and II Paralip. xxxii, 30, which refer to an aqueduct con- 
structed by him at the end of the eighth century B.c. 


186 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


have been used for the composition of most of the prophet: 
ical books of the Bible. Its archaic form was employed at 
a much later period on the coins of the Machabees, and has 
remained the sacred script of the few Samaritan families 
still surviving at Nablus. 


2. Second Period: The Aramaic Form of Writ- 
ing. The earliesttype of Semitic writing thus far described 
gradually passed into another more easily traced. which is 
sometimes called Szdonzan, from its chief representatives, 
the great inscriptions engraved on the sarcophagi of the 
kings of Sidon, Tabnith and his son Eshmunazar II. Under 
the more usual name of the Aramzan, it is now considered, 
and justly, as a slow and popular transition from the old and 
stiffer form of the Semitic letters, some remaining unchanged 
whilst others were gradually being transformed into a more 
cursive style, due chiefly to the free use of the reed pen and 
papyrus. The development of this new type of writing was 
certainly going on as early as the seventh century B.c., and 
its continuity may now be traced from the fifth to the first 
century before the Christian era, through the newly found 
coins struck by the Persian satraps of Asia Minor, and then 
by means of much later mortuary inscriptions and Egyptian 
papyri.’ About the middle of the fourth century it had be- 
come the common Semitic script, and had been for a long 
time already used by the Hebrews in their commercial trans- 
actions with the Sidonians and Arameeans. 

As regards the adoption of the Aramaic by the Israelites 
in the transcription of the Holy Scriptures, nothing can be 
clearly defined. It seems, however, very likely that the in- 
troduction of a new -type of writing in copying the sacred 
books was very slow, and that it was not employed in tran- 

1 Cfr. for details or fac-similes, Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of 


Samuel, Introduction, p. xi, sqq.; HaAstTi1NGs, Bible Dictionary, vol. i, p. 73, sq.; ViGou- 
Roux, Dictionnaire de la Bible, art. Ecriture Hebraique, col. 1580, sq. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 187 


scribing the Pentateuch before the definitive organization ‘of 
the Samaritan community. <A Jewish tradition embodied in 
the Talmud points to Esdras as the originator of this very 
important change, and its testimony is probably correct in 
the main.’ The script which “this ready scribe in the law 
of Moses ” brought with him from Babylon, may have been 
considerably different from that which had been used so far 
in Palestine, and his authority would make it acceptable to 
his fellow-Jews. Thus can we account for the fact that, 
while the chosen pzople of God changed their style of writ- 
ing their most sacred books, the schismatic Samaritans pre- 
served the text of the law in the older character.’ With 
reference to the other holy writings distinct from the law, 
*t can be surmised that they were not exclusively copied in 
the Aramaic form before they had been fully canonized in 
the Jewish Church. 


3.. Third Period: The Square Character. The 
various changes through which the archaic form was trans- 
formed into the Aramaic character had a twofold result : they 
made writing easier and quicker, they made it also, and for 
this very reason, less legible.- It was therefore natural that 
when this newer type of writing was adopted officially and per- 
manently for the transcription of Holy Writ, a reaction should 
take place against anything connected with its use which 
would betray irreverence for the Word of God. Hence, 
through greater care in writing, through a religious wish to 
obtain as beautiful a script as possible for the sacred text 


1 In the Talmud we read: “‘ Originally the law was given to Israel inthe Hebrew 
character and in the sacred tongue; it was given again to them, in the days of Esdras, in 
the Assyrian writing and inthe Aramaic tongue. Israel chose for themselves the 
Assyrian character and the sacred tongue, and left to the idév@rat (the Samaritans) the 
Hebrew character and the Aramaic tongue” (Treatise Sanhedrim, 21 6, quoted by 
Driver, loc. cit., p. ix). This tradition is certainly correct as to the fact of a change of 
script; the word Assyrian is possibly used loosely for Babylonian, or Syrtan 
(Aramaic). 

2 See Plate iv, at the end of this volume. 


188 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTUESR. 


a new and finer form of the Aramaic was gradually evolved, 
which, from its general character, is called the syuare or dis- 
tinctly Hebrew type of writing. Calligraphic reasons prob- 
ably led to the adoption of the sgware character for the 
various inscriptions of the environs of Jerusalem and of 
Galilee which have been recently discovered, and which be- 
long at the latest to the first century before the Christian 
era.’ It was in this character that the Hebrew manuscripts 
of Our Lord’s time were written, and ever since, whether in 
MSS. or in printed editions, the square form has been the 
obligatory Hebrew style of letters for the transmission of 
the sacred text. . 


§ 4. The Hebrew Text. 


1. The Roll (Volumen). Throughout these various 
changes in their writing, the Israelites preserved (as far as 
can be ascertained) for their books the one and same form 
of the Ro//. As these books were made of flexible materials, 
viz., papyrus and skins of animals, it was found convenient 
to have their various sheets, after they had been fastened 
together at the edges, attached to and wound around one stick 
or cylinder into a roll or volume, and if the books were very 
long, they were rolled around two cylinders, from the two 
extremities. The leaves were usually written over only on 
one side,” and the text was divided into small columns with 
margins at the top and at the bottom and a certain space 
(probably a two-fingers’ breadth) between every two col- 
umns.* When the manuscript was used the reader unrolled 
it until he found the place, or if the manuscript was wound 
around two sticks, he unrolled from the one and rolled up 


1 See fac-similes of these inscriptions in ViGouRoux, Dictionnaire de la Bible, col. 
1583; see, also, Lotsy, loc. cit., p. 86, sqq. 

2 The known exceptions are referred to in Ezech. ii, 10, sq.; Zach. v, 1, sqq. 

8 Cfr. Sm1TH, Bible Dictionary, art. Writing (p. 3575 of the Amer. edit.), 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 189 


around the other as he progressed, and when he had finished, 
he rolled it up again. 

It is highly probable that in ancient times each sacred 
book was written upon a separate roll, ‘“ the Law,” or first 
Canon, being written eventually on five, corresponding with 
our five books, or Pentateuch of Moses. ‘The second layer 
of the Canon, or “the Prophets,” was written on eight rolls ; 
the twelve minor Prophets were, it is true, copied sometimes 
on separate rolls, as may be inferred from the differences 
of arrangement in the earliest Hebrew and Greek manu- 
scripts, but usually they were transcribed on the same roll 
after their number was definitely fixed in the Canon of Holy 
Writ. The third layer of the Canon of the Old Testament, 
“the Hagiographa,” was for a long time as indefinite in the 
number of rolls as in the number of writings which were 
believed to constitute it.’ 

The obligatory, because truly traditional, form of Hebrew 
manuscripts for public use in the synagogues, is still that 
of Rolls, but copies for private reading were written in 
ordinary book form, when that shape came into general use. 


2. The Hebrew Orthography. It must be admitted 
that while the Roll-form of the sacred text has remained 
invariably the same, Hebrew orthography has undergone a 
few important changes. The first of these changes is con- 
nected with the division of words in our modern Hebrew 
manuscripts. It is true, indeed, that in the inscription of 
Mesa, and inthe Siloam inscription, the words are separated 
by a point, but it is probable that this division was not then 
g, and 
that, as regards the text of the sacred books of the Old 


generally indicated in a more cursive style of writin 


Testament, the separation was first introduced and marked 
(either by points or by spaces) for guiding the reader in the 


1 BriacGs, Introduction to the Study of the Holy Scripture, p. 170. 


190 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


public services. In point of fact, many a time the division 
of words in our modern Hebrew manuscripts is defective, 
and the Septuagint Version frequently presupposes a differ- 
ent division from that which has come down to us. This 
clearly proves that ‘if the separations between words were 
marked in the autographs of the Old Testament, some 
irregularity and neglect must have been shown in the obsery- 
ance of them.” ’ 

A second, much more important and much, better ascer- 
tained change in the Hebrew orthography, refers to what is 
called the Scriptio plena. This Scriptio plena consists in the 
insertion into the radical letters of a word, of feeble con- 
sonants which could help the reader in understanding or 
pronouncing the word correctly. In ancient ‘times, as may 
be inferred from the inscriptions of Mesa and of Siloam, 
this insertion was very rare in Semitic and Hebrew writing, 
‘Tt is probable that these consonants were used at first 
chiefly at the exd@ of words, e.g., to mark pronominal suffixes 
and inflectional terminations, which were important for the 
sense,” ” and it is certain that their common use to mark 
long vowels in general, belongs to a late stage in Hebrew 
orthography.* 

The last change we shall mention here is connected with 
the suffix of the third person singular masculine, whose 
original form was gradually transformed and shortenéd as 
to its spelling. As a result of the non-recognition of this 
orthographic change, errors of transcription crept into our 
Hebrew MSS., and mistakes of rendering were made in the 


versions." 
3. The Unpointed Text. Intimately connected with 


1 Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel, Introduction, p. xxx. 

2 A. B. Davipson, An Introductory Hebrew Grammar, rrth ed., p. 5, footn. 1. 

3 Cfr. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel, Introd., 
pp. Xxxii-xxxiv. 

4 For details, cfr. Driver, ibid. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. I9gt 


these orthographic changes, though much later in date, is 
the introduction into the Hebrew Text of signs different 
from the letters of the alphabet, and destined to secure the 
correct reading of the original. It would be a waste of time 
at the present day to adduce arguments to prove that these 
vowel signs, or Massoretic points as they are called, did 
not belong to the primitive text. Suffice it to say, that 
all ancient Semitic writing (Moabitic, Aramaic, Phoenician, 
Hebrew) which has come down to us in its original form, is 
unpointed, that is, exhibits consonants without these marks, 
or points. Further, it is an unquestionable fact that neither 
the Talmud nor St. Jerome knew of aught as belonging to the 
Hebrew Text, except the consonants. Down to the present 
day the manuscripts used for public services in the syna- 
gogues are unpointed. 


/ 


SYNOPSISHOR*GTIiAI LER @LX. 
HIsTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, 


Section Ll. Transmission of the Original Text. 








4 1. Obscurity of this long period. 
Rice Punioneuie Ievidences of freedom in transcription and redac 
tion. 
(T D5 ; Ae 
EP ORTAO Veet) 3. Date and method of fixing. 
21: | 
SECOND 1. Rise and growth of the Massorah. 
PERIOD: 2. The Talmudists and their Textual criticism. 
(TO THE | ( Aim. 
3. The Massoretes { Method. 
ELEVENTH . Success. 
CENTURY). 
(1. Preservation of ( Manuscripts (Synagogal— 
TIT Private). 
thectext : ) Printed editions. 
THIRD 
2. Criticism of the ( The old controversies (Buxtorf, 
PERIOD: Cappel, Morin, Rich. Simon). 


text: Recent work. 
(To ouR Day). 
3. Concluding remarks. 





TV. 
The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Aramaic Targums. 
APPENDIX: 


1g2 


CHAPTER IX. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


SECTION II. ‘TRANSMISSION OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT. 
Sits ir sie fered (10 TAO A Da), 


I. Obscurity of this Long Period. Of the various 
periods into which the history of the text of the Old Testa- 
ment may be divided, none is more important than that 
which extends from the first appearance of the individual 
books to about the middle of the second century after Christ, 
for it was during this long series of centuries that the sa- 
cred text grew gradually and became settled for all subse- 
quent ages. It would therefore be very desirable that we 
should be able to ascertain by means of many and reliable 
documents, the competency and methods of those who in 
the course of this first period contributed to make what is 
still practically our standard original text of the Old Testa- 
ment. In reality, there is hardly a perjod in the whole his- 
tory of the transmission of the Hebrew Bible which supplies 
fewer sources of information to students of Biblical Criti- 
cism. 

In the first place, there is no extant Hebrew MSS. going 
back to anything like that remote period; nor is there any 
reading in our oldest copies that we could refer with cer- 
tainty to this early age, on the ground that it accounts for 
all the textual variations as they now lie before us.’ Again, 


1 Cfr. Frants Bunt, Canon and Text of the Old Testament, p. 79 (Engl. Transl.). 


13 | eS 


194 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


if we except the Samaritan Pentateuch, which of course 
gives us information bearing only on the text of the books 
of Moses, we possess no direct and reliable testimony re- 
garding the textual condition of the writings of the Hebrew 
Bible before the time of the Septuagint. If we add to 
these two oldest sources of information the ancient Syriac 
Version, and the citations found in writings of the first cen- 
tury of our era, we shall have enumerated all the documents 
belonging to that period which can help us in realizing some- 
thing of the manner in which the sacred text was trans- 
mitted down to the middle of the second century after Christ. 
Furthermore, we should bear in mind that, in connection 
with the Septuagint Version, that is, with our most valuable 
source of information, it is impossible in a large number of 
cases to determine accurately the Hebrew reading which the 
Greek translators had before their eyes. 


2. Evidences of Freedom in Transcription and 
Redaction. But however great and permanent the causes 
of the obscurity which surrounds this first period, they have 
not prevented modern scholars from obtaining a general 
knowledge of the manner in which the scribes of these remoter 
ages dealt with the sacred text. Our Hebrew MSS. are all 
recent, it is true, but their text, as we shall see very soon, is 
practically identical with that which existed at the beginning 
of the second century of our era, and consequently its de- 
fective readings may go back to a period anterior to that 
date. In point of fact, a careful comparison between our 
Hebrew Text and the Septuagint alone, or the Septuagint 
and the Samaritan Pentateuch for the first five books of the 
Bible, proves abundantly that textual defects by omission, 
addition, substitution, transposition, etc., of words or pas- 
sages, are as old in the Hebrew as these most ancient exter- 
nal sources of information. Now when these various defects 


HISTORY OF THE fEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 195 


are closely examined, they appear to be referable either to 
haste in transcription, or to intentional alteration, and con- 
sequently give us an insight into the manner in which the 
scribes of the centuries before Christ performed their work 
of transcription. In general, it may be said that the ex- 
treme care and scrupulous accuracy with which the Hebrew 
Text was formerly supposed to have been copied before the 
second century of our era, are clearly disproved by an un- 
prejudiced study of the data supplied by external and inter- 
nal evidence concerning this first period in the transmission 
of the Hebrew Bible.’ 

In like manner, the charges directed by early Christian 
apologists, such as St. Justin, St. Irenzeus, etc., against the 
Jews for having corrupted the Old Testament Scriptures out 
of hatred to the Christian faith are really groundless. The 
changes introduced into the sacred text which are of 
any importance go back to a time before the Christian 
era; and the charges against the Jews were most likely 
prompted by an over estimation of the Septuagint Version 
in passages where it differed from the Hebrew, or perhaps 
even by a wish to meet with a ready answer the accusations 
of inaccuracy in rendering, which Jewish controversialists 
brought forth against that old Greek translation. 

This is not, however, all the information which a careful 
study of both external and internal sources of evidence has 
brought to light about the Hebrew Text during this first 
period of its transmission. Even when all allowance has 
been made for errors, interpolations and deliberate altera- 
tions in the Septuagint Version in particular, there remains 
as an unquestionable conclusion that many, and these the 
most important variations, are not simply the result of ancient 


1 For details, see T. K. ABsotT, Essays Chiefly on the Original Texts of the Old and 
New Testaments ; cfr., also, in the American Ecclesiastical Review (Feb., 1896), an arti- 
cle on The Hebrew Bible, by the present writer. 


196 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


freedom in transcription. Not only in the historical books 
of Kings, but in the prophetical writings of Jeremias, Eze- 
chiel and Daniel, and in the poetical books of Job and Prov- 
erbs, the additions, omissions, and transpositions are so ex- 
tensive that most biblical scholars do not hesitate to admit 
that the Greek translators made use of a Hebrew Text very 
different from the one which we have at present and which 
goes back at least to the second century of our era.’ Nay, 
more, these greater variations combined with minor differ- 
ences of.a similar kind that are observable throughout the 
Hebrew Bible when compared with the Septuagint, have led 
critics to the conclusion that in the second century before 
the coming of Christ, the Hebrew Text existed in a variety 
of forms, one of which is represented by the Septuagint, and 
another by the manuscripts from which our present Hebrew 
‘hext is derived. 


3. Date and Method of fixing the Hebrew Text. 
Of course it is not easy at the present day to determine the 
precise date at which this freedom in transcription and re- 
daction of the ancient scribes was done away with. It 1s 
beyond question, however, that it disappeared some time 
before the close of the first period we have distinguished in 
the history of the transmission of the sacred text. Three 


1 Most of these differences will be pointed out later, especially in the chapter on the 
old Greek translations. For the sake of example, however, we mention here the 
following textual variations found in the Septuagint and connected with the books of 
Kings : 

1. Additions : 19 lines after the first verse of chap. iii in III Kings ; verse 46 in the same 
chapter (in the LX X) has been increased by an addition of 19 lines also ; and in chap. xii 
so much has been added to verse 24, that in the Septuagint it has no less than 68 lines 
instead of the 2 or 3 it should naturally have, if it were a simple translation of our 
Hebrew Text, etc., etc. ; 

2. Omisséons : In the narrative of David and Goliath (I Kings, xvii) verses 12-31, 41, 
50, 55-58 are omitted; in III Kings, ix, verses 15-25 of the Hebrew are likewise 
omitted ; and in chap. xiv of the same book, the first 20 verses are not to be found, etc. 

3. Transpositions: in III Kings, the first 12 verses of chap. vii are placed after 
verse 51 of the same chapter ; chap. xxi occurs before chap. xx; etc., etc. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE. OLD TESTAMENT. 197 


Greek versions were made in the second century of our era; 
one by the Jewish proselyte Aquila, early in that century ; 
anothcr by Theodotion, and a third by Symmachus a little 
later. Now if we are to judge of the condition of the text 
at the time through the considerable fragments of these 
translations which have come down to us, it is plain that it 
was then for all practical purposes identical with our pres- 
ent Hebrew Text. This is confirmed by the fact that our 
Hebrew Bible is the same as that which Origen (f 254 A.D.) 
used for his gigantic work of the fexapla, and which is 
found at the basis of the Targums or translations into the 
vernacular Aramaic which took shape about the third cen- 
tury after Christ. 

But while we know for certain the approximate date 
when a uniform text came into general use, it must be con- 
fessed that, owing chiefly to our present lack of reliable 
documents and to our ignorance of a more exact date for 
the official determination of the text, we can reach only 
probable conclusions as regards the manner in which the 
Hebrew standard was obtained. These probable con- 
clusions may be stated briefly as follows : 

First, some manner of criticism seems to have been applied 
in the fixing of an authoritative: text. This we may infer 
with a fair amount of probability from the Jewish tradition 
recorded in the Talmud which bears distinct witness to 
eighteen corrections made by the scribes of old, to five 
removals of the conjunction 1 (and), and tells us that three 
copies of the sacred writings were used by these critics in 
such a manner as to exclude every reading opposed by 
the majority of two MSS. Secondly, the amount of liberty 
taken with the current text by the scribes was very limited, 
for the standard they adopted bears frequent and manifest 
traces of a method which has little in common with the 
application of the most elementary rights of Textual Criticism. 


198 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Thus the most glaring mistakes of the text were allowed to 
stay, the unusual size of certain letters was preserved, the 
divergences in reading or representation found in the pas- 
sages repeated, were left unharmonized, etc. All this points 
indeed to their great reverence for the Word of God ; it points 
also to the fact that they desired much less to produce 
a critical edition of Holy Writ, than to give a scrupulously 
faithful transcript of a text already in existence. Thirdly, 
it is probable that the uniformity of the text which prevailed 
in the second century of our era and henceforward, could be 
best secured by the Jewish scribes by the simple adoption of 
a MS. as the standard text. At the time of the fixing of 
the Hebrew Text, the Jews had long been accustomed to 
look with the greatest veneration upon the minutest details of 
their law,’ and upon the traditions of the elders, so that the 
most natural means to spread among them a text whose 
authority would easily be recognized, consisted in repro- 
ducing with perfect accuracy a copy which would commend 
itself by its antiquity and perhaps also by its connection 
with the Temple services in Jerusalem. 

Finally, the scribes who fixed the Hebrew Text, not only 
gave the example of faithfully reproducing the copy before 
them, they most likely also framed rules calculated to pre- 
vent future deviations from their authentic edition.” 


§ 2. Second Period (to the Eleventh Century). 


I. Rise and Growth of the Massorah. With the 
fixing of the Hebrew standard a new period opens in the 
history of the transmission of the sacred text. The ten- 
dency to modify its readings, already so limited in the past, 

1 Cfr, Matt. v, 18; Luke xvi, 17. 

2 For details, cfr. cee. Histoire du Texte et des Vertione de la Bible, pp. 132-146; 


W. R. SmitH, The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, Lecture iii; S. Davipson, A 
Treatise on Biblical Criticism, vol. i, p. 116, sqq. (Boston, 1853). 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 199 


vanishes now forever, and the critical efforts of the Jewish 
scribes are henceforth directed towards one thing, viz., the 
maintenance of the received text in its perfect integrity. Of 
course this was no absolutely new method of dealing with 
the sacred text, especially with that of the Mosaic law. Dur- 
ing the last stage of the preceding period, under the influence 
of the celebrated Rabbi Agiba,’ to whom is ascribed the 
saying, ‘‘ ‘Tradition (Massorah) is a fence to the law,” minute 
rules had been laid down not only for the interpretation, but 
probably also for the transcription, of the sacred books, and 
particularly of those of the great lawgiver of Israel. It is 
chiefly, however, in the following period, from the second to 
the eleventh century of our era, that these rules were grad- 
ually developed, codified, written down, and fully utilized in 
the transcription of the Hebrew Bible. This entire period 
might therefore be justly called A/assoretic, because it wit- 
nessed the steady growth and application of that Z7radition 
(Massorah),? whose distinct object aimed at and whose 
actual enforcement resulted in the well-nigh perfect trans- 
mission of a text of the second century after Christ. It is 
customary, however, to apply the name of JZassoretic only to 
the second part of this long period (from the sixth to the 
eleventh century), and to call its first part the age of the 
Talmud. 


2. The Talmudists and their Textual Criti- 
cism. As might naturally be expected, the learned rabbis 
who lived at the beginning of this second period continued 
to work on the same lines as their immediate predecessors. 
Their chief concern was to deduce laws from the words of 


1R, Aqiba flourished about A. D. 110-135. For details concerning him, see ScHtrer, 
The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, Divis. ii, vol. i, p. 375, sq. (Engl. 
Transl.) ; and Mie.ziner, Introduction to the Talmud, p. 29, Sq.; Pp. 125, sq. 

2 The word Massorah is most likely to be derived from 4939, to deliver, to transmit 


(cfr. Lotsy, loc. cit., p. 146, footn. 1). 


200° GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, 


Holy Writ or to test by the same means laws already in ex- 
istence, but generally as yet unwritten. ‘They worked also 
at perfecting the attempts made by their predecessors for 
codifying these various laws, and their labors resulted—at 
what precise date we cannot say—in producing that part of the 
Talmud which is now called the AZishnah or Second Law of 
the Jewish people.’ This Mishnah or traditional law, once: 
written, served in turn as a text which was expounded by 
the rabbis of the following generations, and it is the collection 
of their commentaries or discussions on the Mishnah which 
forms the second part of the Talmud, under the name of the 
Gemara. . This name is probably identical with the term 
Talmud, which means the feaching or study of the traditional © 
law, and hence it appears interchangeable with it in the ex- 
pressions, the Ladylonian Talmud, the Palestinian Talmud, 
used to designate the two distinct compilations of the Ge- 
mara in the Jewish schools of Babylonia and Palestine, 
respectively.” However this may be, the Talmud is a huge 
legal work, made up of the Mishnah as the text, and of the . 
Gemara as its discursive commentary; and its authors, the 
Talmudists, are those rabbis whose business it was to codify, 
write down, expound and develop the uncanonical law of 
their nation. 

Of course it is fate at the present day to describe 
accurately the method and extent of criticism which the 
Talmudists carried out in regard to the Holy Scriptures, for 
their work, as stated above, was begun by scribes in the 
period before them, and finished long afterwards in the 
days of the Massoretes. The following points, however, are 
generally agreed upon among biblical scholars. The Tal- 


1 Cfr. MiELzINER, Introduction to the Talmud, p. 4, sqq.. According to him, how- | 
ever, the Mishnah means strictly “the instruction in the traditional law, in contradis- | 
tinction to Np, the reading in the written law of the Bible.” 


2 The Patten Talmud is also called, but less correctly, the Talmud of Ferusaleer 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 201 


mudists “did not attempt anything like a regular revision 
of the sacred text. They marked certain readings which 
seemed to them doubtful. If they met with a clear mistake 
they corrected it in the margin, but seldom or never meddled 
with the text. They gave minute directions about copying 
of manuscripts and cautions about such errors as similar 
letters. They counted the number of verses and words in 
each book in order to preserve it from future corruption. 
They recorded, but in a rambling, unmethodical way, the 
textual notes of their predecessors for centuries before. 

“The Talmud contains many traces of their rough-and- 
ready method of Biblical Criticism. It enumerates certain 
words which they found in their Bible MSS. with a little 
mark already placed over them, thus showing us that at 
least some rude sort of textual criticism existed even before 
their days. 

“The great security of the text among the Talmudists is 
the extreme reverence and awe with which it was regarded. 
Human nature is a strange compound. The very men who 
practically were putting their commentary in the place of 
the Bible almost worshipped the letter of that Bible itself. 
They wrote every word in it with scrupulous care; they 
washed their pens before the holy name (Yahweh) ; they 
dared not alter even a plain mistake, except by a correction 
in the margin of the text.” ’ 

It is also to the labors of the Talmudists, concerning the 
Holy Scriptures, that we may refer in the main, what has 
been called ‘ an exegetical tradition,”* or fixed method of 
pronouncing and dividing the sacred text. But owing to 


99 2 


1 J. PATERSON SmyTH, The Old Documents and the New Bible, p. 80, sqq. Of special 
importance are the variations known as K€¢/7b/ (written) and Qerz (read), several of 
which go back to the Talmudists and show that to their minds the reading they indicated 
inthe margin (the Qerz) was superior to what was found in the text (the A@¢2764.) For 
instances, see S. Davipson, A Treatise on Biblical Criticism, vol. i, p. 117 (Boston, 1853) 

2 A. F. KrrKPATRICK, The Divine Library of the Old Testament, p. 67. 


202 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


their great reverence for the letter of Holy Writ, they never 
thought of adding to the consonants any vowel marks, and 
they simply transmitted orally the received method of read- 
ing. In point of fact, St. Jerome, so well acquainted with 
the exegetical methods of the rabbis of his time, knows of no 
written vowel points, and testifies that, even in his day, 
pronunciation is still to some extent a matter of choice and 
locality." 


3. The Massoretes. However important may have 
been the critical work of the Talmudists, it cannot compare 
with that of the rabbis who came after them, and are now 
known under the name of the MassoreTes. Generation 
after generation, these “‘ Masters of the Massorah ” busied 
themselves with writing down whatever traditional data con- 
nected with the sacred text might secure its correct read- 
ing and accurate transcription. Their aim, whether in 
Babylon or in Tiberias, the two great centres of Jewish 
learning at this time, was in no way to produce a critical 
edition of the sacred text as we would understand it to-day, 
that is, with textual changes as required by different readings 
found in MSS. still in existence, or preserved orally by tra- 
dition. This method of dealing with the holy writings 
was entirely foreign to the time-honored customs of their 
teachers and ancestors, and in point of fact instead of in- 
troducing such changes into the sacred text, they simply 
and faithfully preserved the consonants they had before 
their eyes.” For proof of this we have only to consult the 
margin of our printed Bibles, which reproduce the Massoretic 
edition, whenever the reader is directed to do so by a small 


1Cfr, St. Jerome, Epist. ad Evangelum presbyterum (Epist. lxxiii, § 8); and his 
Comm. in Jeremiam ix, 22 ; in Isaiam xxxviii, 14. 

2 The remarks which follow concerning the work of the Massoretes, have already ap- 
peared in the American Ecclesiastical Review, for Feb., 1896, art. The Hebrew Bible, by 
the present writer. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 203 


circle inserted in the text. At times we shall find that the 
margin bids the reader transpose, interchange, restore or re- 
move a consonant, while at other times, it directs him to 
omit or insert even an entire word. Now, this clearly im- 
plies that to the mind of our learned Jewish rabbis, the 
traditional text was actually wrong in all these cases, and 
that consequently, if they had been less anxious to hand it 
down in the precise form in which it lay before their eyes, 
they would have themselves made the desired corrections 
instead of simply prescribing them to the reader.’ At other 
times the margin calls attention to peculiarities of writing, 
such as the presence of some consonant of unusual size, of 
some letter written above the line, of dots placed over a 
letter, etc. And here again had the Massoretes been less 
particular about transmitting even the least details of the 
traditional text, they would most naturally have done away 
with these and similar irregularities: the consonant of 
unusual size would have assumed the ordinary dimensions, 
the letter written above the line because at first forgotten by 
the scribe, would have been inserted in its proper place in 
the word, etc. é 

But the Massoretes were not satisfied with transmitting 
most faithfully the consonantal text as they had received it ; 
they also wished, after the example of the Talmudists, to 
secure its intact preservation through future ages. With 
this end in view, they furnished copyists with ampler means 
than in the past of avoiding or detecting errors of trans- 
mission. One of these means is still found at the end of 
each book of our Hebrew Bibles. ‘Thus, for instance, at 
the end of Genesis, the copyist is told that the book con- 
tains 1,534 verses, that the total number of its letters is 


1In this connection, it must be said that the readings thus recommended in our 
printed Bibles are those which were adopted by the school of Tiberias, and which differ 
at times from those preferred by the school of Babylon. 


204 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


4,395, that the exact middle of the book occurs in chapter 
xxvii, 40; and lest he should forget these details, mnemonic 
words are supplied. As another means to secure exact 
transcripts of the original, we may mention marginal notes 
found in larger Hebrew Bibles and usually introduced in 
connection with passages where any error was to be feared. 
Thus, regarding the phrase “the Spirit of God” (Elohim), 
the note says: “It occurs eight times,” and indicates the 
places. In all other cases but these eight it is “the Spirit 
of the Lord” (Yahweh); and the note keeps the copyist 
from dropping into this easy mistake of writing the more 
common phrase. Elsewhere, the Massoretes put the copy- 
ists on their guard against changing the proper place of 
some small and apparently insignificant word. ‘This is the 
case for instance with Josue ix, 1, where we read, ‘“ When 
all the kings who were beyond Jordan, the Hethite ad the 
Amorite, the Chanaanite, the Pherezite, the Hevite avd the 
Jebusite.”” There a marginal note warns the transcriber 
to write the conjunction “and ” (1) only twice, and_ that be- 
fore the second and before the sixth proper names. 

The most powerful means, however, to prevent errors of 
transcription consists in the minute rules which were laid 
down for copying synagogue manuscripts, and the principal 
of which will be given a little later. 

All this body of traditional remarks and rules, with addi- 
tions by the Massoretes themselves, bear the name of the 
Massorah and were at first written in separate M5S._ Later 
on they were transferred to the margins of the copies of the 
Bible, around the text, and according as they are given in 
a fuller or a more abbreviated form, they constitute what is 
called the Greater or the Lesser Massorah.? 

Beside the critical apparatus so far described, and faint 
traces of which still appear in our printed editions, the Mas- 
soretes devised various signs to secure the correct reading 


1 See P.ate v, at end of this volume. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 205 


of the original and placed them in or around the conso- 
nants, as we may still see them indicated in the MSS. of the 
period and in our ordinary copies of the Hebrew Bible. 
Many of the signs, like those in our pronouncing dictionaries, 
point out the correct way of articulating the consonants, or 
indicate the exact vowel sounds with which the letters should 
be coupled. Other signs constitute a regular system of 
accents intended to regulate the modulated reading of the 
sacred text. They make known to the reader which syl- 
table in each word must be pronounced with a special stress 
wf the voice, which words in the sentence should be either 
separated from or connected with each other, and finally 
what is the musical cadence required by the various groups 
of words. 

Such is the wonderful reading apparatus with which each 
page of the original Hebrew is actually supplied. Its origin 
is traced back to the learned Jewish rabbis of Tiberias,’ 
who gradually improved it and finally brought it to its per- 
fection about the middle of the eighth century.” But it 
is important to bear in mind that here also the Massoretes 
did not originate a new method of reading the text. They 
simply stereotyped what had long been current under the 
form of oral tradition, and as we know from a comparison 
with the pronunciation indicated by Origen in _ his 
Hexapla, that tradition carries us back to the first cen- 
turies of the Christian era. 


1“ Babylon and Tiberias each adopted a distinct system of pronunciation marks. In 
all essential points the two systems agree. The Babylonian, however, is less elaborate. 
It was completed first probably in the seventh century, butit fell entirely into disuse. It 
does not appear in any printed Bibles, and is known only from MSS., of which the most 
famous is the St. Petersburg Codex of the Prophets, date 916 a.p.”’ (A. F. Kirx- 
PATRICK, The Divine Library of the Old Testament, p. 70). 

2 The Massoretic vowel signs grew most likely out of the single dot which the Syrian 
scholars of Edessa were the first to use to distinguish certain letters and forms (cfr. 
Lorsy, loc. cit., p. 160, sq.; Briccs, Introduction to the Study of Holy Scripture, 


p. 180, sq.). 


206 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Whatever may be thought of the endless, confusing, and 
at times puerile, details into which the Massoretes did not 
hesitate to go in order to secure the faithful transcription, 
and, as far as they knew, the correct pronunciation of the 
Hebrew Text, it cannot be denied that they proceeded on 
really traditional lines, and that their arduous labors ob- 
tained their end during the centuries of transcription which 
followed. 


§ 3. The Third Period (to our Day). 


1. Preservation of the Text. It was only natural 
that the original Hebrew as revised and edited by the Mas- 
soretes, should be adopted by the Jewish scribes who came 
after them and should be henceforth transmitted with the 
greatest care. This Massoretic Text was new only in so far 
as it bore the impress of the best scholarship of recent 
times ; it was the old traditional text, in every other respect. 
It presented the same consonants as had been copied in past 
ages, and exhibited them with their ancient peculiarities of 
writing, sometimes even with their most evident mistakes, 
noted indeed in the margin, but left uncorrected in the text. 
Besides, the Massoretes themselves had gradually introduced 
its use, and had taken all the precautions necessary to secure 
its accurate transcription in the future. We are not there- 
fore surprised to find that, in point of fact, all the extant 
MSS. which were written after the age of the Massoretes, 
contain the Massoretic Text, and this with but slight varia- 
tions. As the pre-Massoretic copies became defaced or 
damaged, and were on that account withdrawn from public 
use, other copies were substituted in their place, and these, 
as a matter of course, reproduced carefully what was now 
considered the best text, viz., that of the Massoretes. 

As all our extant MSS. belong to the same family—the 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 207 


Massoretic,—and as the oldest among them’ are not much 
older than the others, the only distinction of any importance 
between them is that which is based on the use for which 
they were intended. According as they were destined to 
public or to private use, they were submitted to more or less 
strict rules of transcription, and therefore may be expected 
to present a degree of accuracy proportionate to the care 
required in their production. Naturally enough, the strictest 
rules laid down regarded the making of the syvagoga/ copies, 
that is, of those MSS. which were intended for use in the 
synagogues. They had to be written on skins, fastened 
together so as to form a roll, whose columns had a fixed 
length and width. They must contain nothing but the con- 
sonants, and the scribe must in no way deviate from the 
authorized copy which is given him as an exemplar. No 
word must be written from memory, but be attentively read 
in the standard text and be orally pronounced before it goes 
down. In writing any of the sacred names of God the 
scribe must lift up his mind with devotion and reverence, 
etc. The copy had to be examined within thirteen days, 
and some authors assert that a mistake of a single letter 
vitiated the entire manuscript ; others, however, maintain 
that it was permitted to correct three in one sheet: if more 
were found, the rolls were condemned to be buried in the 
ground or burned, or were banished to the schools, to be 
used as reading-books. 

Had the synagogue rolls contained the entire text of the 
Bible, or had the copies made for private use been submitted 
to the same precise rules of transcription as those intended 
for the public services, there is no doubt that most of the 
variations which occur in the extant MSS. would have been 


’1 Only a few extant MSS. are older than the twelfth century of ourera. For details 
see H. L. StrRAcK, Prolegomena Critica in Vetus Testamentum; and Ap. NEUBAUER, in 
Studia Biblica and Ecclesiastica, vol. iii, pp. 1-36. 


208 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


avoided. In reality, the synagogal copies contained only the 
Lentateuch, sections from ‘the Prophets,” and the five books 
called “ Rolls” (nidsn) by the Jews, viz.: Canticle of Can- 


ticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther,’ and 
consequently only these books or parts of books were tran- 
scribed with the extraordinary care just referred to. Private 
copies, a comparatively small number of which comprised 
all the books of the Hebrew Bible, were written in book 
form, sometimes on parchment, sometimes on paper, and 
usually in the square character.* Ink of various colors 
could be used, and the size of the columns was not necessa- 
rily uniform. Oftentimes the original text was accompan- 
ied by an Aramaic paraphrase, arranged either in a parallel 
column to, or between, the lines of the Hebrew. In the upper 
and lower margins (generally speaking) the Greater Massorah 
was written ; in the external side margins were put notes, 
comments, corrections and divisions of the text, while the 
Lesser Massorah was inserted between the columns. The 
Massoretic vowel points and accents, which are still for- 
bidden in the synagogal rolls, were generally inscribed in 
private copies; but they were always inserted after the tran- 
scription of the consonants had_ been entirely completed.* 

It goes without saying that deep respect for the Word of 
God, either alone or combined with the desire of producing 
copies that would find purchasers, sufficed generally to render 
the scribes careful in their preparation of manuscripts for 
private or common use. But of course, despite all their good 
will, deviations, not indeed very considerable, still of some 
importance, crept into the MSS., especially into those which 

1 These five books were read publicly at certain festivals in the synagogues, viz., the 
Canticle of Canticles at the Passover; Ruth at Pentecost ; Lamentations on the ninth 
day of the month of Ab (the day on which Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans) ; 
Ecclesiastes at the feast of Tabernacles, and Esther at the feast of Purim. 


2 Some of them are written in the smaller and cursive rabbinic letters. 
3 F. G. Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, p. 35. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 209 


were written for ordinary purposes, and these deviations from 
the Massoretic standard were seriously objected to by some 
French and Spanish leading rabbis of the thirteenth cen- 
tury.’ 

When the art of printing was invented it would have been 
a comparatively easy work to prepare and spread a more 
correct Massoretic text, by means of an extensive and care- 
ful examination of the MSS. then in existence, but no 
work of the kind was attempted at the time. The first part 
of the Hebrew Bible which appeared in print was a very 
defective text of the Psalms,” published in 1477 (without 
the name of the place of publication). Soon afterwards the 
other books were printed in different towns of Italy, and as 
early as 1488 a complete edition of the Hebrew Text ap- 
peared at Soncino (near Cremona), made partly from MSS. 
and partly from the texts already printed. This first Hebrew 
Bible, “‘ which varied considerably from the Massoretic 
text,” “ served as a basis to several other editions, among 
which we may mention that of Brescia, in 1494 (used by 
Luther in making his version of the Old Testament), the 
first rabbinical * edition of Bomberg (Venice, 1517-1518), 
and the manual editions of Bomberg (1517, 1521), of R. 
Estienne (1539), and Sebastian Miinster (Basle, 1534). 

The second independent text was printed at the cost of 
Cardinal Ximenes, at Alcala (1514-1517). : It was made 
upon good Massoretic MSS., and presents the text with 
vowel points but without accents. 

The third independent text was edited by Jacob ben 
Chayim in the second Rabbinical Bible of Bomberg (Venice, 
1526). ‘This was carefully revised after the Massorah. 

1 Cfr. Lorsy, loc. cit., p. 180, sq. 
2 Cfr. Preface by DeLirzscu, to S. BAER, Liber Psalmorum, p. v. 
3 A. Cave, An Introduction to Theology, p. 302 (2d edition). 


4 The Rabbinical Bibles are thus called because they contain the Targums, with various 
Jewish commentaries, 


14 


210 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


All the printed editions from that time * were more or less 
mixtures of these three texts, until S. Baer and Franz 
Delitzsch undertook a fourth independent edition, by means 
of the entire Massoretic apparatus accessible. They pub- 
lished the several books separately, by intervals between 
1869 and 1895, when this most valuable edition of the tradi- 
tional text remained incomplete by the death of both editors. 

‘A fifth independent text has just been published by 
Christian D. Ginsburg, two vols., 1894, which will be doubt- 
less for some time the standard edition of the Massoretic 
text. It is essentially based upon the first edition of Jacob 
ben Chayim’s Massoretic recension.” ? 


2. Criticism ofthe Text. All the editions thus far men- 
tioned do not go back of the Hebrew standard fixed by the 
Massoretes, but simply give its text in a more or less accu- 
rate form. Their purpose is not to appraise the traditional 
text, to determine whether and how far it contains deviations 
from the very words used by the inspired writers, but rather 
to restore the forms and expressions which had been agreed 
upon by the Massoretes long centuries after the composition 
of the Holy Scriptures, and which had already undergone 
greater or lesser changes. In consequence, they bear wit- 
ness much more to a practical wish to supply useful or 
correct copies of the received text, than to theoretical pre- 
occupations concerning its value. In point of fact, doubts 
or preoccupations about the perfect integrity of the Masso- 
retic Text hardly ever crossed the mind of Jewish scholars 3 
wedded as they were to tradition and accustomed to trace 


1 One of these editions was published by Van der Hooght (Amsterdam, 1705); it has 
been until recent times the 7ertus Receptus of the Hebrew Bible. 

2 BRIGGS, op. cit., p. 187. 

8 Only a very few Jewish doctors rejected the original character of the vowel points. 
Frants Bunt, Canon and Text of the Old Testament, p. 209 (Eng. edit.), names only 
Mar Matronai II, Menahem ben Sarug, Judah Chayug, and Elias Levita. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 21f 


back anything ancient, the exact origin of which they did 
not know, to a very remote antiquity, or to some great and 
final authority, like that of Moses or of Esdras and the Great 
Synagogue. Consonants and vowel signs and accents were 
supposed to go back to the inspired writers; the authority 
of the Massoretic Text was held supreme, and any version 
or document differing from it was in so far treated as unre- 
liable. 

Attracted by views, which, in affirming the plenary inspira- 
tion of everything in the Hebrew Bible, made it easy to deny 
the necessity of the Catholic Church as the living interpreter 
of the Sacred Scriptures, and to reject the value of the Latin 
Vulgate but lately declared authentic by the Council of Trent, 
many Protestant scholars, led by the two Buxtorfs (father 
and son) the great Hebrew teachers of Basle, defended 
with vigor and learning the perfect integrity of the Hebrew 
Text.’ They were opposed with equal vigor and ability 
by Louis Cappel, a Protestant, Professor at Saumur, and by 
Jean Morin, a French Oratorian, who. both maintained that 
the vowel points were of late origin, that the Massoretic Text 
is far from being perfect, and must even be corrected in 
many passages by the help of the ancient versions, espe- 
cially the Septuagint. These opponents of the Massoretic 
Text went no doubt too far in depreciating its value, as its 
enthusiastic admirers had gone too far in exalting its author- 
ity, and this is well pointed out by Rich. Simon when he 
says: “It cannot be denied that the Hebrew and Greek 
copies to which Protestants ascribe the very perfection of the 
originals have been alteredinnumberless places. Yet they 
should not be put aside altogether to follow blindly the 


1 The passage of Brian WALTON, the editor of the great London Polyglot, bearing on 
this point and quoted by Briaas, Introduction to the Study of Holy Scripture, p. 224, is 
particularly instructive. Cfr., also, Richard Srmon, Histoire Critique du Vieux ‘Testa- 
ment, vol. i, Book i, chap. xxvii, p. 146. 


212 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


ancient versions, either Greek or Latin, which the Church 
has authorized by her long use, but the Hebrew Text should be 
improved upon by means of extant MSS. and of the ancient 
versions of Holy Writ... , and though we can solidly 
draw grounds of our faith from the versions which the Church 
has approved of, still the same Church does not affirm that 
these translations are either infallible or absolutely correct 
in all their parts.” ’ 

These wise words of ‘the Father of Biblical Criticism ”’ 
were apparently hearkened to in France by the Jesuit 
Father Houpicant (f 1783), and in England by the cele- 
brated Oxford scholar, Benj. Kennicott (1783), but they 
were not destined to modify, to any considerable extent, the 
hitherto prevalent currents of criticism. Catholic theolo- 
gians continued to cling to the text of the Vulgate, and 
Protestant scholars appealed as confidently as ever to the 
Massoretic Text. Indeed, it may be said that for a while 
the views indorsed by Rich. Simon must have appeared alto- 
gether untenable, particularly as the immense labors of 
B. Kennicott and of De Rossi ({ 1831) who compared about 
1,600 copies, proved that each and all reproduce faithfully 
the text of the Massoretes, that is a text, as we have already 
seen, which goes back practically to the second century of 
our era. ‘This established the wonderful fact that for nearly 
seventeen hundred years the form of the Hebrew Bible has 
been preserved practically unchanged, and suggested to 
many scholars a most natural inference. They concluded 
from the deep reverence and successful care with which the 
Jews had handled the original Hebrew ever since the 
coming of Christ, that a no less profound respect and no 
less successful care were exercised concerning it during the 
period which extends between the beginning of our era and 
the precise time at which the sacred books were composed. 


1 Rich. Simon, Hist. Critique du Vieux Test., vol. i, Book iii, chap. xviii. p. 465. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 213 


But, however natural the inference, and however tempting 
the very completeness of the theory it suggested, the sub- 
sequent labors of critics such as Jahn, Justus Olshausen, 
‘Thenius, Julius Wellhausen, Abraham Geiger, Graetz, Bick- 
ell, Cornill, Driver, Martin, etc., etc., have proved that the 
Hebrew Text is far indeed from being perfect, and that after 
all it should be corrected pretty much on the lines which 
Rich. Simon had indicated. We cannot, of course, enter here 
into the details of the methods of criticism which these lead- 
ing scholars have applied or are still applying to the Hebrew 
Bible. We cannot delay to show how a careful examination 
of grammatical forms and connections of words is used to 
disclose omissions or interpolations; how the laws of He- 
brew poetry, so long unknown, are successfully applied as a 
means of testing the integrity of the poetical books or por- 
tions of books; how passages repeated in different places 
have served as a means of comparison to discover altera- 
tions, and Jewish traditions have been studied in their 
sources to testify to changes introduced into the very con- 
sonants composing the primitive text; how, finally, the an- 
cient versions, more especially the Septuagint, have been 
carefully compared with the orig*wal Hebrew, and many of 
the important variations discovered have been traced back 
to a text considerably different existing in Hebrew MSS. of 
the second century before Christ.’ Suffice it to say, that 
the result of the immense labor of critics during the nine- 
teenth century has forever disposed of the old theory that 
our, Hebrew Bible reproduces with perfect accuracy the 
original documents as they came forth from the hands of 
the inspired writers. 

‘It is in consequence of this truly scientific conclusion 


1 For examples, cfr. Lorsy, loc. cit., p. 213, sqq.; T. K. ABsort, Essays Chiefly on the 
Original Texts; and art. on The Hebrew Bible, in the American Ecclesiastical Re- 
view for Feb., 1896, pp. 118-126, by the present writer. 


214 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


that works of great importance were recently started with 
the purpose of reaching a better text by means of the strict- 
est methods of the Textual and Higher Criticism. We have 
in view (1) the invaluable edition entitled Zhe Sacred Books 
of the Old Testament in Hebrew begun in 1893, and pub- 
lished by eminent scholars of Europe and America under 
the direction of Prof. Paul Haupt; (2) the new English 
translation of Zhe Sacred Books of the Old and New Testa- 
ments begun in 1898, and under the same general editor 
as the preceding work, to which in fact it corresponds in 
many ways; (3) Zhe ILnternational Critical Commentary 
under the editorship of Professors Driver and Briggs, for 
the Old Testament, a serial publication begun in 1895 and 
still issuing; finally (4) A Hebrew and English Lexicon 
of the Old Testament, edited by Francis Brown, with the co- 
operation of Driver and Briggs, the first part of which ap- 
peared in 1891 and is still in course of publication. Other 
works intended to secure as far as possible and spread the 
primitive text of the separate books will be referred to 
in our forthcoming volume on Sfecza/ Introduction to the 
Old Testament. 


3. Concluding Remarks. Suchis in brief the history 
of the original text of the Old Testament. Its every stage 
is surrounded with great obscurity, yet not to such an extent 
as to prevent us from realizing something of the varied 
fortunes it underwent through past ages. Froofs abound 
that the scribes of the first period of its transmission were 
far less careful than transcribers of later times—that not 
only have accidental changes crept into the consonants of 
the text, but that even intentional alterations have been in- 
troduced. Far from reproducing with almost perfect accu- 
racy the original work of the inspired writers, our Hebrew 
(the Massoretic) Text contains alterations both numerous 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 215 


and important. Yet they are not really greater than one 
might naturally expect in documents so long preserved, so 
often transcribed by all manner of copyists. Besides, how- 
ever numerous and important, neither any one of them in 
particular, nor all combined, can be said to impair in any 
way seriously the sacred deposit of Revelation contained in 
the Divine Scriptures of the Old Testament. Specialists of 
the nineteenth century have already done excellent work in 
their attempts to restore the primitive reading either of 
select passages or of entire books, but incomparably more 
still remains to be done to secure a text whose corrections 
will commend themselves to all, as the result of reverent, 
judicious, patient and thorough criticism. Meantime the 
Textus Receptus may safely be used for ordinary purposes 
of reference and interpretation: in most passages of dog- 
matic importance, however, recourse should be had to the 
valuable commentaries which have appeared on the separate 
books of the Hebrew Bible. . 

Finally, owing to the custom of the Jews to bury all 
sacred MSS. which had become unfit for public use, owing 
also to the small number of copies which ever were in cir- 
culation before the Christian era, there is no probability that 
we shall ever find Hebrew MSS. that would go back to a 
period before the formation of the text which we know as 
Massoretic. ‘Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible must 
therefore be pursued in the future as in the past without the 
least hope of such discovery, but with the most diligent use 
of whatever evidence may be gathered from all the sources 
of information. 


StA The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Aramaic Targums. 


We subjoin in form of an Appendix a few remarks on the 
Samaritan Pentateuch and the Aramaic Targums, which, on 


216 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


account of their origin and leading characteristics, stand in 
a very special relation to the original text of the Old Tes- 
tament. 


1. The Samaritan Pentateuch. It may be truly said 
that the Samaritan Pentateuch is simply a Hebrew copy of 
‘¢ the Law,” inasmuch as it contains the first five books of the 
Bible in the Hebrew tongue, though written in a different 
character from that of the extant Hebrew MSS. _ It is written 
in the archaic Hebrew character, which, as we saw in the 
foregoing chapter, was probably given up by the Jews in 
favor of the Aramaic form of writing in the fourth century 
before Christ. Whence it follows that the Samaritan Text 
goes back to the period before this occurred; but a more 
precise date for its origin cannot be assigned with absolute 
certainty. _ Various considerations, however, have led mod- 
ern scholars generally to admit that the Samaritans received 
the books of Moses as their sacred books only a short time 
before this event, and to connect their reception with the 
fact recorded in Nehem. xiii, 23-30, viz., the expulsion by 
Nehemias of a grandson of the high priest Eliasib, who had 
married the daughter of the hated governor of Samaria. This 
expulsion was soon followed by the erection of a Samaritan 
temple’ on Mt. Garizim, and by the full organization of a 
schismatic worship, in view of which the. grandson of 
Eliasib, named Manasses, had most likely brought with him 
a copy of the Pentateuch, which thus became the Bible of 
the Samaritans. 

The Pentateuch is therefore a Hebrew Text whose origin 
is to be traced back to a period much remote from the time 
when our Massoretic Text was fixed. No wonder, then, 
that when, in 1616, the first copy of the Samaritan Penta- 
teuch was brought to Europe by the Italian traveller, Pietro 


1 Cfr. JosepuHus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book xi, chap. viii. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 217 


della Valle, many scholars thought that they at length’ pos- 

_sessed a text far superior to that of the Hebrew MSS. The 
first printed edition was published by the French Oratorian, 
Jean Morin, in 1632, and for generations a hot controversy 
raged among biblical scholars concerning the comparative 
value of the Samaritan and Hebrew texts. The elaborate 
essay of Gesenius, which was published in 1815, and in which 
this great Hebrew scholar examined all the differences be- 
tween the two documents, proved to the satisfaction of 
many scholars that in no instance was a Samaritan reading 
preferable to that of the Hebrew. Of late, however, there 
is a tendency to regard this absolute verdict in favor of the 
Hebrew Text as altogether one-sided. 

“The Samaritan Pentateuch has been estimated to differ 
from the Hebrew in about 6,000 places. The great major- 
ity of these are of very trifling importance, consisting of 
grammatical alterations or the substitution of Samaritan 
idioms for Hebrew. Others (as the substitution of Garizim 
for -Aéa/ in. Deuter. xxvil, 4, as the hill on: which the 
memorial altar should be placed) are alterations of sub- 
stance, so as to suit Samaritan ideas of ritual or religion. 
Others contain:supplements of apparent deficiencies by 
the help of similar passages in other books, repetitions of 
speeches and the like from parallel passages, the removal 
of obscurities or insertion of explanatory words or sentences, 
or distinct differences of reading. In all these latter cases 
there may evidently be two opinions as to whether the 
Samaritan or the Hebrew reading is preferable. The ap- 
parent deficiencies in the Hebrew may be real, the obscur- 
ities may be due to error, and the Samaritan Text may be 
nearer to the original language. This probability is greatly 
increased when we find that in many passages where the 
Samaritan differs from the Hebrew, the Greek Septuagint 
Version (of which we shall speak in a future chapter) agrees 


218 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


with the former. For example, the Samaritan and Hebrew 
texts differ very frequently as to the ages of the patriarchs 
mentioned in the early chapters of Genesis. Gesenius clas- 
sified these variations as alterations introduced on grounds 
of suitability; but it is at least possible that they are not 
alterations at all, but the original text, and that the numbers 
have become corrupt in the Hebrew Text; and this possi- 
bility is turned into a prqbability when we find the Septua- 
gint supporting the Samaritan readings. ‘There is no sat- 
isfactory proof of either the Septuagint or the Samaritan 
Text having been corrected from each other, nor is it likely 
in itself; and their independent evidence is extremely diffi- 
cult to explain away. Hence scholars are now becoming 
more disposed to think favorably of the Samaritan readings. 
Many of them may be errors, many more may be unimpor- 
tant, but there remain several which are of real value.” * 
The real worth of the last-mentioned differences is made 
out by various means, especially by reference to the context 
and by appeal to the ancient versions of the Old Testament. 


2. The Jewish Targums. Among the ancient ver- 
sions just referred to are justly numbered those written in 
that language which is called “the Hebrew tongue” in the 
New Testament,’ but is really the Aramaic, which, as we 
saw in the preceding chapter, gradually supplanted the 
Hebrew proper on the lips of the Jews after the Baby- 
lonian captivity. As the Hebrew became more and more 
an unknown language to the people at large, the necessity 
of paraphrasing the sacred text into the current Aramaic 
tongue was felt more and more. At first, these paraphrases 
were simply oral interpretations and comments, as appar- 


1. G. Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, p. 46, sq.; cfr. also 
Martin, Introduction Générale a la Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament, vol. 
i, p. 71, sqq.; S. Davipson, A Treatise on Textual Criticism, vol. i, pp. 78-103. 

2 Cfr. Acts of the Apostles xxii, 2; xxvi,-14; etc. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 219 


ently in the scene described in Nehem. viii, 1-8; ‘soon, 
however—how soon cannot, of course, be defined—this 
method of interpretation was reduced to a system, assumed 
a written form and developed into a kind of popular Bible. 
These written paraphrases are called “ Targums,” the name 
itself meaning probably “ interpretation.” 

The best extant Targums are: (1) Zhe Zargum of Onkelos, 
thus called most likely, not because composed by Onkelos, 
a Greek translator of the Old Testament, better known 
under the name of Aquila, but because written with scme- 
thing of the same literal character for which Aquila’s Greek 
Version was remarkable. In point of fact, it is a very 
simple and literal translation of the entire Pentateuch. In 
its present shape it probably originated in Babylon, about 
the third century of our era. 

(2) Lhe Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, on “ the Prophets ” 
or second part of the Hebrew Bible, whose present form is 
assigned to the fourth century after Christ. It is somewhat 
more free than that of Onkelos. 

(3) Zhe Zargums on the Hagigrapha, composed by differ- 
ent authors, more modern, but apparently made, as indeed 
the other two Targums already mentioned, on the lines of 
former translations. No Targum is extant on the books of 
Esdras, Nehemias and Daniel, while there are two Targums 
on the book of Esther. 

The use of the Targums for improving the Hebrew Text 
_ requires the greatest caution, because they are usually fara- 
phrases rather than close translations, and because even 
when very literal, or quoting expressly the sacred text, they 
seldom preserve readings whose exact date can be ascer- 
tained.’ 

1 For further information concerning the Targums, cfr. Bunt, Canon and Text of 


the Old Testament, pp. 167-183 (Engl. Transl.): S. Davipson, ibid, pp. 224-239; 
CoRNELY; VIGOUROUX; etc. 


SYNOPSIS#OPEGHAP TER: X. 
History OF THE TExT oF THE NEw TESTAMENT. 


Section I. Description of the Original Text. 


1; [ 1. Old disputes between Purists and Hebratsts. 


THE GREEK . The Attic dialect altered into a common Greek 


language (The Kowwy AvdAexroc). 


ie) 


IDIOM 


In the New Testament, The Jewish Hellenists. 
the Kowh  Acadexzoc 


modified by 


OF THE NEW 3P 





TESTAMENT: The Apostolic Writers. 





( Publicati £ Writing under dictation, 
II | ie th On ek ie Transcription and correction. 
: eungma's* ( Recitation and publication. 
THE GREEK ve 
Sareea lator Writing materials. 
TEXT eLheeisr Shape of MSS. (rolls; codices). 

OF THE NEw Shape of letters (uncial; cursive). 

_ | 3. External form j Division of words and punctua- 
TESTAMENT 2 Of thes lext: tion. 


Breathings and accents. 
220 


CHAPTER X. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 
SECTION I. DESCRIPTION OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT. 
§ 1. Zhe Greek Idiom of the New Testament. 


1. Old Disputes between Purists and Hebraists. 
Theological preoccupations similar to those which induced 
such prominent Protestant Hebrew scholars as the two 
Buxtorfs to declare themselves for the plenary inspiration 
of the Massoretic Text in its every detail, led other Protes- 
tant divines of the same and of the following century to 
embrace no less untenable views regarding. the Greek Text 
of the New Testament. According to them, only very 
elegant Greek could be a result worthy of the divine guid- 
ance granted to the sacred writers of the New Law, and 
hence they concluded that “ the style of the New Testament 
‘reaches in every respect the standard of classical purity 
and elegance.” ' Those Purists, as they have been called, 
recoiled from no laborious research to prove a thesis which 
had the further advantage in their eyes of undermining the 
authority of the Latin Vulgate by exalting so highly the 
original text. Some of them went even so far as to pre- 
tend that the very Hebraisms, whose real character they 
could. not distort in any way, were but an additional beauty 


1G. B. Winer, A Grammar of the Idiom of the New Testament, p. 12 (Engl. 
Transl., 7th edit., Andover, 1877). 


221 


222 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


which the Holy Ghost had combined with the many perfec- 
tions of classical Greek literature.’ 

Hardly less extreme were the views of many of their 
opponents, known under the name of the //ebrazsts or Fel- 
Zenists. These scholars were bent on disproving the classi- 
cal character of the diction of the New Testament, and 
hence they not only strove to show its Hebraistic coloring, 
but greatly exaggerated it. Some of them even saw Hebra- 
isms in every verse, and feared not to accuse the sacred 
writers of solecisms and barbarisms.? 

Between these two extreme positions a few biblical 
scholars occupied a middle ground, and endeavored to 
discriminate between the Greek and Hebrew elements of 
the style of the New Testament. This more reasonable 
view ultimately prevailed, but its final success was secured 
only after long and ardent disputes between the Purists and 
Hebraists. Nothing, in fact, contributed more powerfully 
towards this all-desirable issue of the conflict than the 
remarkable work published as late as the first quarter of 
the nineteenth century, by George Benedict Winer, under 
the title of Grammatik des Neutestamentlichen Sprachidioms 
(Leipsig, 1822). Ever since, biblical scholars have granted 
that the diction of the New Testament is far removed from | 
classic purity, and that Hebraisms should be admitted only 
in places where their presence is unmistakable. 


2. The Attic Dialect Altered into a Common Greek 
Language. In maintaining so strenuously their view that 
the purest Attic forms the staple of the New Testament 
diction, the Purists evinced not only their strong theological 
bias, but also their profound ignorance of the many and im- 

1 The incomplete and arbitrary character of the methods of the Puyzsts is admirably 
exposed by Winer, A Grammar of the Idiom of the New Testament, p.16,sq. Cfr, 


also BEELEN, Grammatica Grecitatis Novi Testamenti, p. 8, sqq. 
2 Cfr. CHavuvin, Lecons d’ Introduction Générale, p. 247. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 223 


portant changes which this Greek dialect underwent several 
centuries before Christ, and which have left their impress 
upon the writings of the New Testament. The beginning of 
these changes goes as far back as the conquest of the various 
Greek states by Philip II, King of Macedonia, in the fourth 
century before our era. Then it was that the four leading 
Greek dialects (the Afolic, Doric, Ionic, and Attic), which 
had hitherto followed parallel lines of development in the 
separate communities which used them, began to exchange 
freely words and forms, because of the closer intercourse 
which soon prevailed among these communities, after their 
union under the Macedonian rule. Then it was also that 
the Attic dialect, which had produced the most abundant and 
the best literature in the past,’ became the language of the 
court and of literature, with the natural result that the writers 
who adopted it mingled with it much that was derived from 
the dialect of their own district or region. ‘This altering of 
pure Attic, which is already noticeable under the pen of 
Aristotle, increased in proportion as the conquests of his 
illustrious pupil, Alexander the Great, extended far and wide 
the influence of Greek language and literature. 

Thus was the Attic dialect gradually transformed from the 
particular and pure language of Attica, into the universal or 
“common ” (the Kows Ardéteztos) language of all Greek-speak- 
ing states, including not only Macedonia, Greece, and Asia 
Minor, but also the extensive Macedonian provinces of Syria 
and Egypt.. The best-known prose writers who used this 
fTellenic (so called in opposition to the A/tic) language, are 
Polybius, Plutarch, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Dio Cassius, 
Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Lucian. ‘Their style is far in- 

1 The Attic is the dialect in which were written the tragedies of A’schylus, Sophocles, 
Euripides, the comedies of Aristophanes, the histories of Thucydides and Xenophon, 
the philosophical dialogues of Plato and the speeches of Demosthenes. It is closely 


allied to the ionic, in which dialect Homer sang the Iliad and the Odyssey, and Herod 
otus wrote his history. 


224 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


deed from the pure Attic of Xenophon, Demosthenes and 
Plato, not only because it contains words borrowed from the 
other Greek dialects, but also because it comprises words 
either entirely new, or employed with a new meaning, or taken 
from the ancient vocabulary of poetry, or even borrowed from 
foreign languages such as the Egyptian, Persian, etc. Im- 
portant alterations have also been pointed out by grammari- 
ans in connection with the inflections of nouns and verbs, 
and with the rules of syntax.’ 


3. The Kowh Atddextos in the New Testament. As 
might naturally be expected, the Greek language underwent 
still greater changes on the lips of the people. When Alex- 
andria, Antioch and other great cities were founded in the 
East by Alexander the Great and his successors, Greeks of 
divers tribes and dialects flocked to these new centres of 
commerce, and from their free intercourse soon resulted a 
popular form of language which was, to some extent, peculiar 
to each of these cities, and which in all cases deviated much 
more from Attic purity and elegance than did the literary lan- 
guage used by men of culture. The Greek-speaking Jews 
(or Hellenists) in particular, spoke Greek less purely than native 
Greeks and imparted to it more or less the impress of their 
mother tongue. Under the pen of their writers, who had 
learned Greek much less from books than from oral inter- 
course with the mixed population of Egypt and Syria, the 
Kowh Ardidextos joined to the various imperfections of the 
popular idiom a Semitic coloring which has caused it to be 
named the /e//enzstic dialect. This is precisely the kind of 
debased Greek which we find in the Septuagint translation 
of the Hebrew Bible, in the deutero-canonical books or parts 


1 For numerous examples, cfr. WINER, loc. cit., pp. 22—27; p. 36 sq.; IMMER, Herme 
neutics of the New Testament, quoted by Ph. ScHarr, A Companion to the Greek 
Testament and the English Version (4th edit.), p. 20, sqq. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 225 


of books, and, to some extent, even in Philo and Josephus, 
who, though well acquainted with Greek literature and aiming 
at a pure style, betray at times their Jewish origin. This 
is also the kind of Greek which is to be found in the writ- 
ings of the New Testament, so that their style is, speaking 
generally,,very far removed from Attic purity and elegance.’ 
Of course, the Hebraizing element is not noticeable to the 
saiae extent in all the inspired writings of the New Testa- 
ment. St. Mark and St. Matthew are most Hellenistic, St. 
Luke, the Acts and the Epistle to the Hebrews, least LN: 
lenistic, in their diction. 

Finally, there was an altogether new element added to the 
Kowh Atddexzvs, by the Apostolic writers themselves. Beside 
the various religious conceptions which were common to 
Judaism and Christianity and for the expression of which 
the Septuagint Version and other Hellenistic writings had 
already supplied Greek words and forms, the writers of the 
New Testament had new truths to convey, new aspects of 
old beliefs to illustrate and emphasize. Hence the necessity 
either to coin new words, or to use in a very different mean- 
ing from the one hitherto received, the words and expres- 
sions of the Hellenistic dialect. ‘Words in common use 
among the classics, or in popular intercourse, were clothed 
with a deeper spiritual significance; they were transplanted 
from a lower to a higher sphere, from mythology to revela- 
tion, from the order of nature to the order of grace, from the 
realm of sense to the realm of faith. 

‘“‘'This applies to those characteristic terms which express 
the fundament , love, 
hope, mercy, peace, light, life, repentance or conversion, re- 





1 For particulars, cfr. beside the Grammar of Winer already referred to, A Grammar 
of the New Testament Greek by Alex. BuTTMANN; The Writers of the New Testament 
by W. H. Stmcox; etc. For the relations between the Synoptists and the Septuagint, 
see Hawkins, Hore Synoptice, p. 162, sqq. 


Se 


226 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


generation, redemption, justification, sanctification, grace, 
humility, apostle, evangelist, baptism, kingdom of heaven.” ’ 


§ 2. The Greek Text of the New Testament. 


1. The Publication of the Originals.’ As the writ- 
ings of the New Testament were composed in the current 
Greek language of the time, so were they published in the 
same way as ordinary books. It is clear, for instance, that St. 
Paul’s epistles were written under dictation, after the manner 
of the ancients who seldom wrote their compositions with 
their own hand, but dictated them to their freedmen or 
slaves, some of whom acted as tayvypdégot, amanuenses, 
notaril, rapid writers. Thus the amanuensis, Tertius, who 
wrote the Epistle to the Romans, has mentioned himself in 
it.® Again St. Paul notes as a peculiar circumstance, in 
his Epistle to the Galatians (vi, 11), that he has written to 
them with his own hand,+ while in other cases, he usually 
adds propria manu only the closing words “as a sign in 
every Epistle.” ° 

The first draught, written very hastily, was committed to 
the care of the /6hoypdgus (librarius) or the zadheypagos 
whose business it was to transcribe it in a neat and elegant 
manner. The copy thus obtained was next passed to the 
corrector, Otopdwr7s, and finally to the dyz6adAwy, who made 
sure of the accuracy of the transcription. ‘ Historical works 
were always to receive, by means of the calligraphist and 
the corrector, that extreme perfection which was required 
in writing which was to come into the hands of many 


1 Philip ScHAFF, Companion to the Greek Testament and English Version, p. 39, sq. 

2 Cfr. Huc, Introduction to the New Test., p. 67 sq. (Engl. Transl.); CHAvviIn, 
Lecons d’Introduction Générale, p. 258. 

i Rom xvi, 22. 

4 Cfr. also Philemon, verse io. 

5 II Thess. iii, 17; cfr. I Cor. xvi, 21; Colos. iv, 18. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 227 


readers,” ? and we may well imagine that such _ historical 
books as the Gospel of St. Luke and the book of the Acts, 
for instance, were submitted to this careful transcription and 
correction. 

Of course, at that time, compositions of any kind could be 
multiplied only by transcripts. When they had passed in 
this way to others, they were beyond the control of the 
author and therefore published. Christians had not the 
advantage of publication by means of booksellers, tilla com- 
paratively late period. 

The publication was preceded by the vecétatio, which, car- 
ried out in the presence of several persons, had the twofold 
advantage of securing witnesses to the true author of the 
work, and of obtaining friendly criticism: if the composition 
was deemed worthy, it was requested for the purpose of 
transcription, and then the work left the hands of the writer 
and belonged to the public. 

Frequently an individual sent his literary production to 
some distinguished man, as a present, or inscribed his name 
to it as a proof of esteem or friendship. He who accepted 
the dedication of a work was henceforth considered as the 
patronus libri, and it was his duty to provide for its publica- 
tion by means of transcription. 

Thus too did the first Christian writings make their appear- 
ance before the public. ‘The Epistles were read aloud in 
the churches to which they were directed, and then whoever 
wished to possess them made a copy of them himself or 
caused one to be made. The historical productions were 
made public by the authors fer recetationem, in the Christian 
assemblies: the subject and the general interest in it pro- 
cured them readers and transcribers.”* Finally, St. Luke 
dedicated his historical works to an illustrious personage, 


1 Hue, Introduction to the New Testament, p. 67. 
2 Hue, ibid, p. 68. 


228 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


named Theophilus, who, in accepting the dedication, assumed 
also the charge of multiplying and spreading copies of them." 


2. External Form of Manuscripts. It is all but cer- 
tain that the books of the New Testament were originally 
written on papyrus, which after it had been manufactured for 
writing purposes was called yapzys (Gin Latin charta).’ This 
was at the time the common material of the Greek literary 
world, and for books written by poor authors, or for episto- 
lary correspondence, no other would naturally be thought of. 
Again, it has been often remarked that in our oldest parch- 
ment MSS. of the New Testament, the general appearance 
of a page with its many narrow columns, points back to a 
time when the sacred text was still written on sheets of 
papyrus. In point of fact, St. John (II Epistle, verse 12) 
says expressly that having many things more to write to his 
correspondent, he prefers not to commit them to the yaprye, 
or sheet of papyrus, but rather to wait for a communication 
of thém from mouth to mouth. It istrue that St. Paul, writ- 
ing to Timothy (II Tim. iv, 13), directs him to bring with 
him “7d (6hta, piktora tas pep6pdvas,” an expression which 
refers to both papyrus (6/2) * and parchment (wey6pdvat) 
rolls, but it is probable that the parchment MSS. alluded to 
were copies of parts of the Old Testament.’ 

The primitive shape of these papyrus MSS. was unques- 
tionably that of Ao//s, according to the custom of all the 
nations of antiquity who used papyrus or even parchment for 

1 We assume here, as most probable, that Theophilus, spoken of in the third Gospel 
with the honorable epithet of kpattare was a real person holding then some high official 
position (cfr. Acts xxiii, 26; xxiv, 3; xxvi, 25). Cfr. KNABENBAUER, Comm. in S. 
Lucam, p. 37 sq.; PLummer, Internat. Crit. Commentary, St. Luke, p. 5. 

2 For the manner in which the xaptys was manufactured, cfr. E. M. THompson, 
Handbook of Greek and Latin Palzography, p. 30, sq. 

8 “ Herodotus, our most ancient authority for any details of the purposes for which 
the papyrus-plant was employed, always calls it B¥BAos ’’ (hence the Greek word BiBAta) 


(TuHompson, ibid, p. 27). 
# KENYON, op. cit., p. 94. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 229 


literary purposes (cfr. Apocalypse vi, 14). The roll: was 
formed by pasting together some twenty sheets of papyrus, the 
best of which were usually reserved for the outside part of 
the roll, because this part was more exposed to risk of dam- 
age and to general wear and tear: beside, a protecting strip 
of papyrus was often pasted down the edge at the beginning 
or end of the roll, in order to give additional strength to the’ 
material and prevent it from being torn.’ It is not unlikely 
that “the elder of the church in Western Asia who arose in 
his congregation to read the letter of St. Paul, which we 
know as the Epistle to the Ephesians, must have held in his 
hand a roll of white or light yellow material about four feet 
in length and some ten inches in height. The Acts of the 
Apostles might have formed a portly roll of thirty feet, or 
might even have been divided into two or more sections. 
Even had the idea been entertained of making a collection 
of all the books which now form our New Testament, it 
would have been quite impossible to combine them in a 
single volume.” * This became feasible only when parch- 
ment, or vellum as it is now called, was introduced in the 
transcription of the sacred books, for the sheets of parch- 
ment could be written on both sides. 

Intimately connected with this change in the writing mate- 
rial, was the adoption of a new form for the MSS. of the 
New Testament. The considerable expense entailed by 
copying on parchment, such extensive works as the Gospels, 
the Acts and the Epistles, suggested naturally that the text 
should be written on both sides of the vellum, and this, in 
turn, led to the practical giving up of the roll-form hitherto 
employed. The old method of fastening together waxen 
tablets which bore a script, into a Cawdex or Codex, was now 
resorted to for binding together the leaves of parchment, and 


1 THompson, Handbook of Greek and Latin Palzography, p. 31. 
2 ‘Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, p. 94. 


230 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


as the book-form was adopted from the waxen tablets, so 
was also the name of Codex taken over to designate the 
parchment volumes. 

The ‘quires or gatherings of leaves, of which vellum 
codices were composed, consisted generally, in the earliest 
specimens, of four sheets folded to make eight leaves (retpas 
‘or tetpddtoy, quaternio), although occasionally gucnuterniones, 
or quires of five sheets (ten leaves) were adopted. It should 
also be noticed that the quires forming the volume had not 
necessarily the same number of leaves, and that as far as 
size is concerned, the Codces were mostly like our present 
quarto or smallfolio volumes. The advantages of the vellum 
codex over the papyrus rolls are obvious: its material is 
more durable, may be written upon on both sides, can more 
easily be re-written, and its form is more convenient for pur- 
poses of reference. Hence the Codex gradually, and ap- 
parently also rapidly, supplanted the roll in the transcrip- 
tion of the sacred books of the New ‘Testament. 


3. External Form of the Text. The script used for 
the early papyrus copies of the Apostolic writings, consisted 
or capital letters which, from their 
curved form, have received the name of Unczals.’| While 
the ordinary capitals of the inscriptions are angular, because 


in those ‘ majuscules ”’ 


cut with the tool on hard substances, such as stone or metal, 
the wncia/s, on the contrary, appear with curves freely traced 
with the reed pen (the xddapvos spoken of in III John, verse 
13) on the smooth substance of the papyrus. For instance, 
the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet is E as an ordinary 
capital, and € as an uncial letter, as we see in a fragmentary 
papyrus * lately found in Egypt and bearing the date of the 
seventh year of the Emperor Domitian, a.p. 88. This 


1 Cfr. E. M. THompson, Handbook of Greek and Latin Palzography, p. 117. 
2 THompson, ibid, p. 126, gives a fac-simile of the writing of this papyrus fragment. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 231 


is also noticeable in the best preserved papyrus of the Ihad, 
known as the Bankes Homer, and going back to the second 
century of our era.’ Its uncials present the exact forms 
which were to remain unchanged for many centuries, and 
which would naturally be employed for the sacred text of 
Scripture, as. they had been for this choicest production of 
Greek literature. In point of fact, this is the kind of uncials 
which may be observed in our oldest vellum copies of Holy 
Writ, with this difference, however, that owing to the substitu- 
tion of the parchment as writing material instead of the papy- 
rus, the scribe had a firmer surface whereon to display his skill 
as a calligrapher, and evidently availed himself of it, for the 
letters of the earliest vellum MSS. are remarkable for their 
great beauty and firmness. 

Naturally enough, these beautiful uncial letters underwent 
different modifications as the copies were multiplied in the 
course of time, until the freer mode of writing (the curszve, 
as it is called), which had been already in use during cen- 
turies for ordinary purposes of transcription, was also 
adopted for copying the sacred text. This took place in 
the ninth or tenth century of our era, when, as we know 
from MSS. going back to that period and recently exam- 
ined, scribes wrote part of their codices in uncials, and the 
rest in “ minuscules,” or cursive letters.” Once introduced, 
the cursive characters, because more easily traced, and taking 
up less room, became soon the accepted script for copies 
of Holy Writ, uncials being confined to MSS. particularly 
beautiful.* 

As already mentioned, the text, both in the papyrus rolls 
and in the early vellum copies of the New Testament, was 
distributed into narrow columns, which had the same num- 


1 See the fac-simile of it, in THompson, loc. cit., p. 127. 

2 Cfr. The Independent, New York, May 4, 1899, p. 1260; cfr., also, art. Palax- 
ography, in Encyclop. Britannica, gth edit. 

» See Plates vito x1, at end of this volume. 


232 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


ber of letters in each line, except in places where the letters 
were made smaller at the end of a line, in order to accom- 
modate words to the available space. Usually the words 
were written without separation between them, ‘and this 
practice continued as a rule down to about the ninth century. 
But, even when the scribes had begun to break up their 
lines into words, it still continued to be the fashion to attach 
short words, e.g., prepositions, to those which immediately 
followed them. It was hardly before the eleventh century 
that a perfect system of separately-written words was estab- 
lished in Latin MSS. In Greek MSS., it may be said that 
the system was at no time perfectly followed, for, even when 
the words were distinguished, there was always a tendency 
to separate them inaccurately.” * 

As the words of the text were not written separately in 
the columns of the papyrus rolls and early codices, there 
was plainly no room for what we now call ‘“ punctuation,” 
understanding thereby a system of signs to mark out sen- 
tences and make clear the sense of the text. In point of 
fact, these ancient documents have no punctuation, except a 
mark used to distinguish the various paragraphs. In the 
papyrus rolls, this mark is sometimes a horizontal stroke, 
sometimes a wedge-shaped sign (> ), sometimes a short 
blank space left in the line, etc. ‘To save room in cases where 
the last line is a short one, and the paragraph is indicated 
by a blank space, the earliest specimens leave only a little 
break, and fill up the remainder of the line with the words 
of the next paragraph. In the early vellum MSS., the same 
plan is followed, with an additional full-point, however, in 
the space left to mark the pause, the full-point being placed 
on a level with either the top or the middle of the letters. 
When larger letters than the rest were introduced (they are 
found in the Alexandrinus of the fifth century) to mark 


1 THOMPSON, loc. cit., p. 65. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 233 


the paragraphs, the letter to be enlarged in cases where the 
paragraph began in the middle of a line, was not the very 
first letter of the paragraph itself, but that of the next line, 
even though it might there occur in the middle of a word, 
and the larger letter was written in the margin in order not to 
affect the normal space between the lines. 

Beside the breaking of the text into paragraphs, the 
ancient biblical MSS. offer another division in connection 
with the Psalms, Proverbs, and other poetical writings. The 
lines (attyot, versus) of these books, instead of containing on 
an average from thirty-four to thirty-eight letters, according 
to the medium average line in the MSS. of Homer, have 
their length determined by the sense, and form short sen- 
tences which correspond generally to the poetical lines of 
the sacred writers. It is after this ‘“ stichometric ” manner, 
as it is called, that St. Jerome wrote, first the books of “the 
Prophets,” and afterwards all the sacred writings he rendered 
into Latin. It was introduced into the Greek MSS. of the 
Pauline and Catholic Epistles, and the Acts, only in the 
fifth century, by Euthalius, a learned deacon of Alexandria. 

“The breathings and accents were not. systematically 
employed in the Greek MSS. before the seventh century. 
Such as are found in isolated passages in the ancient 
papyri do not appear to have been written by the first hand, 
and most of them are probably of much later date... . 
Nor were they used in the early uncial manuscripts.- The 
ancient codices of the Bible are devoid of them.” * 

The various details which have just been given about the 
external form of the MSS. and of the text of the New 
Testament, are of great importance to determine the relative 
antiquity of our extant Greek MSS. They belong to that 
branch of knowledge which is called Pa/eography, and which 
was treated for the first time in a systematic manner by the 


1 E. M. Tuompson, art. Paleography, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, gth edit. 


234 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


learned Benedictine, Dom Bernard pE Montraucon, 
who published his masterly book entitled /aleographia 
Greca in 1708. ‘The general rules he then laid down have 
not since been changed materially, but simply improved 
upon, by means of fuller sources of information. 

A very few remarks in this connection will be sufficient 
here. (1) As uncial characters were employed down to the 
tenth or eleventh centuries, and cursive letters began to 
come into use as early as the ninth, it is not surprising to 
find that we have some cursive MSS. older than some un- 
cials ; (2) In general, the more upright, square and simple 
the uncial characters are, the earlier is the writing ; narrow, 
oblong, leaning, elaborate letters came in later ; (3) The 
absence of letters larger than the rest is a sign of antiquity ; 
(4) The antiquity of copies is also ascertained by means of 
the scarcity or the total absence of breathings, accents and 


punctuation.’ 


1 For further information concerning Palzographic rules, see ScRIVENER, A Plain 
Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament (4th edit ) ; GARDTHAUSEN, Gric- 
chische Palzographie, Leipsig, 1879. 


ey NOSIS“ OF CHAPTER XI, 
HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE New TESTAMENT. 


Section Ll. Transmission of the Original Text. 


I, 
1, Early and growing adulteration of copies. 
FIRST PERIOD: 
2. Extant manuscripts described. 
(ro THE FIFTH 
3. All important variations traceable to this period. 
CENTURY). « (f 


Tis f 
1. Principal uncial MSS. (paleographic differences 

SECOND from earlier copies). 

PERIOD: 
Number. 

(TO THE SIx- 2. Cursive 
+ Palzographic details. 

TEENTH Manuscripts : 

Text exhibited. 
CENTURY). 


ma re Terese ie first printed editions. 
R Ae Exact value of the “ Textus Re. 
THIRD red a et [ ceptus.” 
PERIOD: 7-4 ere ( First appearance in the eight- 
4 eenth century. 
| 


(THE PRINTED | Rditions : Principal critical editions (authors 
| aA | and theories). 

EDITIONS). 

| 3. Concluding Remarks. 


eos) 


CHAPTER XI. 
HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
SECTION II. TRANSMISSION OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT. 
§ 1. first Period (to the Lifth Century ). 


I. Early and Growing Adulteration of Copies. The 
first period which we may distinguish in the history of the 
original text of the New ‘Testament comprises the first 
four centuries of its transmission. It is surrounded with 
great obscurity, owing chiefly to our lack of reliable sources 
of information, and in consequence only a few of its features 
can now be realized. 

The first of these features is connected with the fate 
which was undergone by the first copies of the sacred text. 
As we Saw in the preceding chapter, no special sacredness 
could be attached to almost any one of them on the ground 
that they had been written by the very hand of the inspired 
writers. Their frail material, too, was little conducive to a 
long preservation of them, especially if freely handled by 
many copyists, or often used for public reading in the serv- 
ices of the Church. It is likewise probable that the firm 
hope entertained by the early Christians of a prompt return 
of Jesus would prevent them from setting such high value 
on any particular copy of the Apostolic writings, as would 
make them anxious for its perpetual preservation. In view 


of these, and other such circumstances, which attended the 
236 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 237 


publication of the sacred writings of the New Testament, it 
is only natural to expect that the first copies which were 
made of them should soon perish without leaving any trace 
in early history. In point of fact, writers living very near 
the time of the Apostles, never appeal to these primitive 
copies." 

A second, and indeed most important feature of this first 
period in the history of the text of the New Testament, 
regards the manner in which the words of the sacred writ- 
ings were copied, in the first centuries of the Church. Had 
the early transcribers been ever so careful to reproduce 
exactly the text before them, it is beyond doubt that, owing to 
their limited power of attention, errors similar to those of 
which we have abundant proofs in subsequent ages would 
have crept into their transcripts. Despite all their care, errors 
of the eye which misreads, of the pen which misspells, of the 
memory which remembers incorrectly, etc., would have cer- 
tainly been found in their copies when submitted to the re- 
visers, who also could hardly be relied upon to remove all 
the defects without exception. Again, in addition to in- 
herited deviations from the primitive copies, each fresh 
transcript would naturally contain fresh errors, to be trans- 
mitted in like manner to its own descendants. 

In reality, the early transcribers and correctors did not 
perform their important work with all the care they might 
have bestowed upon the transcription of the Holy Scriptures. 
Professional scribes were apparently more concerned about 
producing numerous than absolutely correct copies, the 
more so because MSS. for private use hardly ever, if ever, 
underwent a revision beyond the comparison which the 
scribe made himself of his own transcript with the exemplar 


1 The passages of St. Ignatius, Tertullian formerly quoted as proving the reverse, 
have no reference to the original copies of the New Testament writings (cfr. TRocHoN, 
Introduction Générale, p. 300, sq. ; S. Davipson, A Treatise on Biblical Criticism, vol. 


ii, p. 40 sq.). 


238 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


at his disposal. A minute and careful study of the quota- 
tions made by the early Fathers of the Church, and of the 
most ancient versions of the New ‘Testament, leads to 
the conclusion that even the official text of particular 
churches had suffered much from the carelessness of trans- 
cribers.' It proves also that a large number of the devia- 
tions which may be traced back to this very early period in 
the history of the text of the New Testament were made 
intentionally to improve grammatically, theologically, or other- 
wise, what we know full well now was no mistake, but the 
exact primitive reading. Nor is this a simple inference from 
data more or less reliable; it is a conclusion distinctly borne 
out by the testimony of so early and so well-informed a 
scholar as Origen (185 ?—254), who, in his commentary on 
St. Matthew,” speaks as follows: “It might appear wrong ”’ 
(he is speaking of Matt. xix, 19: dyamyjoets tov zAynotov) “ to as- 
sert that these words are interpolated here, were it not that 
there is such a difference in many other places between the 
copies of the Gospels, that neither those of Matthew, nor 
those of the other Evangelists agree together. . . . The dif- 
ference in MSS. has now become really great, both from the 
carelessness of the copyists and also from the arbitrary con- 
duct of those to whom is entrusted the correction of the 
copies; and further from emendations, additions, and omis- 
sions, made by many according to their own judgment.” 

It will be noticed that in his enumeration of the various 
sources of textual corruption, Origen does not include the 
perverse influence of such early heretics as Marcion, Theo- 
dotus, Apollonius, etc., whose daring work in corrupting 
Holy Writ is so loudly denounced by the Roman priest, 

1 For details in connection with this difficult point of Textual Criticism, cfr. Hua, In- 
troduction to the New Testament, p. 85, sqq. (Engl. Transl., Andover, 1836); S., 
Davipson, A Treatise on Textual Criticism, vol. ii, p. 53, sqq. 


2 The Greek passage of Origen is given in Hua’s Introduction, p. 87, and Davipson’s 
Textual Criticism, p. 62. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 239 


Caius (fl. end of the second century),’ and the holy Bishop 
of Lyons, Irenzeus (f ab. 200).*. The reason of the silence 
of Origen is simply this. Duly warned by their priests and 
bishops against the adulterated copies which heretics scat- 
tered broadcast, the faithful children of the Church suc- 
ceeded generally in keeping their own MSS. free from alter- 
ations due to the hateful influence of heresy. But, while 
they thus suspected and rejected every corruption of the 
text that might come from outside the Church, both the 
flock and the pastors were not, to the same extent, on their 
guard against the various textual errors which  circu- 
lated in copies of Catholics. It is only natural therefore 
to find that Origen does not reckon the influence of early 
heretics among the various sources of the many differences 
which existed in the Greek MSS. of his time. It is only 
natural also to hear him denounce “the carelessness of 
transcribers, the caprice of those who undertook the revision 
or correction of copies, and the meddling of critics who ven- 
tured upon improvements according to their own judgment 
and so added or omitted,” * for these were the very sources 
which had produced and gradually multiplied textual varia- 
tions in the copies of Catholics. 

Of course it is impossible at the present day to givea 
very definite idea of the number and gravity of the differ- 
ences existing between MSS. at the time of Origen, say be- 
tween 200 and 2504. p. But it is beyond doubt that, as early 
as the third century, textual variations were such as to call for 
a remedy, by means of critical revisions or /ecenszons, as 
they are now called, of the Greek Text. Of such recensions, 
three are usually admitted by modern scholars, viz., the first 
by Origen; the second by the Antiochian presbyter, Lucian ; 


1 Cfr. Eusesrus, Ecclesiast. History, Book v, chap. xxviii. 
2 Cfr. IREN@us, Ag. Heresies, Book i, chap. xxvii. 
8S. Davipson, loc. cit., p. 62. 


240 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


and the third by an Egyptian bishop, named Hesychius; 
but we have solid historical ground only in favor of the last 
two revisions, whose existence is implied in a letter of St. 
Jerome to Pope St. Damasus I (f 384).'. The exact char- 
acter and extent of influence of these critical labors are 
unknown to us. It is commonly thought, however, that these 
recensions checked for the time being the rapidity with 
which alterations had hitherto been introduced, because they 
furnished standard copies, to which MSS. written within this 
or that particular district naturally conformed. 

A last feature to be mentioned here concerning the first 
period in the transmission of the Greek Text regards the 
total disappearance of the numerous copies written before 
the middle of the fourth century. While we possess frag- 
ments of papyrus rolls of the classics, and going back to 
even an earlier period,’ we have absolutely nothing of the 
MSS. of the New Testament of the first three centuries, 
although many of these must have been made of parchment. 
This entire disappearance of the New Testament MSS. was 
due to a variety of general causes, three of which can still 
be pointed out. There was, first of all, their constant use 
in public and in private, which entailed a wear and tear, not 
undergone to anything like the same extent by the MSS. 
even of Homer, the best and most widely read poet of 
Greece. There was, in the second place, the edict issued 
by Diocletian in 303, ordering that all the sacred books of 
the Christians should be burned,*® and in consequence of 
which numberless copies must have been destroyed by the 

1 Cfr. Mice, Pat. Lat., vol. xxix, col. 527. 

2 The principal of these fragments are those of the ‘‘ Phado” of Plato, and of the 
“ Antiope” of Euripides, which go back to the third century B.c. Other fragmentary 
papyri of the second and first centuries B. c. are also referred to in E. M. THompson, 
Handbook of Greek and Latin Paleography, pp. 119-125. 

3 The original edict which ordered that “the churches should be razed to the ground, 


and the Sacred Scriptures consumed by fire,” is unhappily lost. Cfr. KusEstus, Eccl. 
Hist., Book viii, chap. ii. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 241 


Roman officials. Finally, the comparatively few MSS. 
which survived the rage of the persecutors were easily 
allowed to perish when replaced by those “ more accurate ” 
copies, of which Eusebius and others after him speak re- 
peatedly,' and which soon spread far and wide after the 
conversion of Constantine the Great. 


2. Extant Manuscripts Described. It is difficult to 
say whether our two oldest Codices, named the Vaticanus and 
the Szzazticus, should be reckoned among the “ most correct ” 
copies of the Greek Text of the New Testament, but there 
is hardly any doubt that they go back to the fourth century. 

The older of the two is to all appearance the Vaticanus, 
so called from the great Vatican library at Rome, into which 
it was probably brought shortly after its establishment by 
Pope Nicholas V ({ 1455). It is a quarto volume, arranged 
in quires of five sheets (or ten leaves each), and consisting 
at present of 759 leaves of fine thin vellum, 142 of which 
are devoted to the New Testament.* Each page (10 inches 
by 10%) is written in comparatively small but clear and 
neat uncial letters, and has three columns usually of 42 lines 
each. Each line contains from 16 to 18 letters, with no 
initial letter larger than the rest. The accents and breath- 
ings which appear throughout the Codex have been added 
by a later hand than the original scribe: but some of its 
punctuation marks are probably due to him. ‘ The writer’s 
plan was to proceed regularly with a book until it was 
finished ; then to break off from the column he was writing 

1 The expressions of Eusebius and subsequent writers are quoted by P. Martin, In- 
troduction a la Critique Textuelle du Nouveau Testament, tom. 2, pp. 80, 147, 173, 207. 

2 Originally the Vaticanus MS. was a complete Greek copy of the Bible. The first 
forty-six chapters of Genesis (the MS. begins at méAcv, Gen. xlvi, 28), the Ps. cv, 
27-CXxxvii, 6, and the books of the Machabees, are now wanting in the Old Testament. 
The New Testament begins on page 618 and breaks off at page 759, in the middle of 
the word ka@apret (Heb. ix, 14); the rest of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Pastoral 


Epistles, the Epistle to Philemon and the Apocalypse are now missing. 
I 


242 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


and to begin the next book on the very next column. 
Thus, only ove column perfectly blank is found in the whole 
New Testament, that which follows é¢¢oé0dvro yap in Mark 
xvi, 8; ... by leaving such a space the scribe has in- 
timated that he was fully aware of the existence of the last 
twelve verses of Mark’s Gospel, or even found them in the 
copy from which he wrote.”’ The passage regarding the 
woman taken in adultery (John vii, 53-vili, 11), is omitted 
without any gap or sign of omission. ‘The scribe has at 
times performed his work with great carelessness, as is evl- 
denced by the fact that he has repeatedly written words and 
clauses twice over and omitted oftener still? lines and 
clauses through what is called Homozoteleuton.® 

The Vaticanus Codex and its readings are usually referred 
to in critical apparatus by means of the capital letter B. <A 
photographic facsimile edition of it has appeared in Rome 
in 1889, under the care of Cozza-Luzi (Vovum Testamentum 
é Codice Vaticano, 1209, etc.), so that all textual critics can 
now examine for themselves all the readings and character- 
istics of this celebrated manuscript. 

The second MS. almost universally ascribed to the 
fourth century * is the Codex Svnaiticus, usually denoted by 
the letterx. It is thus named from the monastery of 
Mount Sinai, where it was discovered by C. Tischendorf 
({ 1874) under the following circumstances. In 1844, this 
celebrated Leipsig professor, travelling under the patronage 


1. H. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, vol. 
i, p. 108. 

2 Cfr. P. Martin, Introduction a la Critique Textuelle du Nouveau Testament, 
tom. i, p. 394 (4th edition). 

3 Omissions through ‘OmocoreAevtor or the ending of two lines with the same word or 
syllable at a short interval occurred in this way: the copyist having written that 
word or syllable once, and looking again at the MS. before him, caught sight of the 
same word or syllable zz zts second occurrence, and thus overlooked the intervening 
words or lines. 

4 E. M. Tuompson, Handbook of Greek and Latin Palzography, places it ‘‘ early in 
the fifth century.” 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 243 


of his own sovereign, King Frederick Augustus of Saxony, 
and being at the convent of St. Catherine, on Mount Sinai, 
picked out of a basket full of papers intended for the stove 
forty-three leaves of a very ancient MS., which he obtained 
for the asking, and published at his return to Europe under 
the name of the Codex Friderico-Augustanus. ‘The rest he 
secured only in 1859, when he went for the third time to 
the East, under the patronage of Alexander II, the Emperor 
of Russia. To that monarch’s wise munificence we owe the 
publication at St. Petersburg of this venerable MS. by typo- 
graphic imitation from types especially cast, in four folio vol- 
umes (Bibliorum Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus . . . edidit 
Constantinus Tischendorf.  LPetropoli, 1862). 

The Codex Sinaiticus is 133 inches by 147, and consists 
of 3884 leaves (the 43 pages of the Friderico-Augustanus 
included), 242 of which contain portions of the Old Testa- 
ment, and 1474 the whole New Testament, the Epistle of 
Barnabas, and a large fragment of the Pastor of Hermas. 
It is written on very fine vellum, with four columns in a page, 
so that the open book presents eight columns in sequence, and 
thus recalls the line of columns on a papyrus roll. Like the 
Codex B, it is without enlarged letters ; but the initial letter 
of a line beginning a sentence is usually placed slightly in 
the margin. As in the Vaticanus also, there are no spaces 
between the words, no breathings, no accents, only few 
marks of punctuation, but part of a line is often left blank 
at the end of a sentence. ‘The writing resembles closely 
that of the Vaticanus, yet it is a little larger; it is in plain, 
square uncials, the width being generally equal to the height. 
“ From the number of dpocorgdevta and other errors it con- 
tains, one cannot affirm that it is very carefully written. .. . 
The grammatical forms commonly termed Alexandrian 
occur pretty much as in other MSS. of the earliest date. 
The whole MS. is disfigured by corrections, a few by the 


214 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


original scribe, or by the usual comparer or Jtop0erys.; very 
many by an ancient and elegant hand of the sixth century, 
whose emendations are of great importance.” ' 

The last twelve verses of St. Mark (xvi, 9-20) are want- 
ing; but as in the Vaticanus, the scribe appears to be con- 
scious of an omission; for the last line of verse 8, which 
contains only five letters, has the rest of the space filled up 
with a flourish, such as nowhere else marks the end of a 
book. ‘The section concerning the woman taken in adultery 
is wanting absolutely in the same manner as in Codex B. 

It is not improbable that the scribe of the. Vaticanus MS. 
was one of the two scribes who were engaged in carrying 
out the transcription of the New Testament in Codex x.’ 


3. All Important Variations traceable to this 
Early Period. Beside these two venerable copies of the 
Greek Text written during the first period of its transmis- 
sion, there are other sources of information by means of 
which recent critics have endeavored to realize better the 
condition of the sacred text during the first four centuries 
of our era. Foremost among these sources we may men- 
tion here the writings of Origen (f 254), of Eusebius of 
Ceesarea (f 340), of St. Jerome (ft 420), together with the 
ancient Latin and Syriac versions of the New Testament. 
The data thus supplied have led biblical scholars to widely 
different conclusions (which will be mentioned more dis- 
tinctly later), regarding the true value of Codices B and x, 
the influence of Origen upon the transmission of the original 
Text of the New Testament, the exact date of the Peshitto 
or Syriac Version, etc.* But they have conclusively proved 


1 ScRIVENER, loc. cit., p. 93. 

2 Cfr. HAmmonpD, Outlines of Textual Criticism Applied to the New Testament, p. 45, 
sqq. 

3 Cfr. P. MARTIN, Introduction a la Critique Textuelle du Nouveau Testament, partie 
pratique, tom. 1. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 245 


that all the variations of real importance (historical, dog- 
matic, exegetical, etc.) connected with the Greek Text, are 
directly or indirectly traceable to this early period. ‘This is 
the case, as we saw already, with the omission of the last 
twelve verses of our second Gospel, of the section concern- 
ing the woman taken in adultery. This is also the case 
with the passage on the periodical descent of the angel of 
the Lord, troubling the pool of Bethesda, for the healing of 
the sick, in John vy, 3, 4; on the baptismal confession of the 
eunuch, in Acts vill, 37 ; and with other passages, such as 
(om esemOnieix, o8 1 lim. 1,16; 1 John v,'7,°8 ; etc. 


§ 2. Second Period (to the Sixteenth Century). 


1. Principal Uncial MSS. _ The second period in the 
transmission of the original Text of the New Testament, 
extends from the fifth to the sixteenth century, and includes 
upwards of too uncial MSS., many of which are mere 
fragments. Even the earliest of these uncials, called the 
Codex Alexandrinus (A) from Alexandria, its place of origin, 
exhibits marked palaographic differences from the earlier 
copies described above. For instance, it has enlarged letters 
to mark the beginning of paragraphs ; the initial standing in 
the margin at the beginning of the first fv//7 line. The writ- 
ing is more carefully finished than that of the earlier MSS. ; 
the letters are rather wide; horizontal strokes are very fine; 
and there is a general tendency to thicken or club the ex- 
tremities of certain letters, as I*, T, @, and C.’ At the 
end of each book there are neat and unique ornaments in 
the ink of the transcriber himself. For these and other 


1 For critical details in reference to these passages, see SCRIVENER, HAMMOND, S. 
Davinson, and Commentators on the books to which they respectively belong. 
2 Cfr. E. M. THompson, loc. cit., p. 152. 


246 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


reasons,’ the Alexandrinus MS. is considered as later in 
date than either the Vaticanus or the Sinaiticus, and is gen- 
erally referred to the beginning or middle of the fifth cen- 
tury. It contains the Old and the New Testaments almost 
complete, and is considered of first-rate importance in Textual 
Criticism. There is a fine specimen of one of its pages in 
Vicourovux, Dictionnaire de la Bible. | 

Hardly less important, though much less complete, is the 
Codex Ephrem (C), in the national library of Paris. It is 
a palimpsest MS., that is, one from which the first writing 
had been rubbed off in order to render the leaves able to 
receive fresh writing, and itis called Codex Aphremi, from the 
fact that after the erasing of the words of the Old and New 
Testaments, works of St. Ephrem had been written on its 
leaves. Through a chemical process, however, the primitive 
writing, which had been but imperfectly effaced, has been 
made to reappear.’ In many paleographical details it re- 
sembles closely the Codex Alexandrinus, although its 
writing is somewhat smaller and a little more elaborate. 
Instead of two columns on a page, as in the Codex A, it has 
but one column of long lines on a page, but there is the 
same absence of accents or breathings, the same simple 
punctuation, the same sort of initial enlarged letters and 
the same short subscriptions to the books. It is generally 
ascribed to the fifth century. 

Next in importance and in antiquity are the Codex Aeze 
(D r) and the Codex Claromontanus (D 2), both of the sixth 
century. These are dsingual MSS., the Greek Text being 

1 Among these other reasons may be mentioned the division of the Gospels into 
Ammonian sections, and the presence of the references to the canons of Eusebius 
written prominently in the margin. Concerning these various divisions, cfr. F. H. 
SCRIVENER, op. cit., vol. i, chap. iii. On the other hand, “the presence of the two 
Epistles of St. Clement, the shortness of the subscriptions, and the absence of the 
Euthalian divisions of the Acts and Epistles, would all point to a date not later than the 


middle of the fifth century ’’ (Hammond, Outlines of Textual Criticism, p. 131). 
2 Cfr. the fac-simile in ViGouROux, Dictionnaire de Ja Bible. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 247 


placed on the left hand of the opening, and the Latin trans- 
lation on the right. The former MS., now found in the 
University Library at Cambridge (England), was bestowed 
upon this great seat of learning in 1581, by the famous 
French Calvinist, Theodore Beza, who had got it out of the 
plunder of the convent of St. Irenzus, in Lyons. It is a 
quarto volume, ten inches high and eight broad, with one 
column on a page, and thirty-three lines in every page. The 
initial letters are not larger than the rest, but stand outa little 
from the line, as in Codex x. The letters are of the same 
size asin the Codex Ephrzmi, and the words are not separa- 
ted, except in the titles and subscriptions of the several books. 
This MS. contains only portions of the Gospels, and the 
Acts, and is especially remarkable for its numerous and ex- 
tensive interpolations, some of which are countenanced by 
the old Latin Version anterior to our Vulgate, and by the 
old Syriac Version published by Dr. Cureton, in 1858. 
“ Apart from these interpolations, D 1 presents a very 
valuable text, akin in its readings to that of the Alexan- 
drine type.” * The second Grezco-Latin MS., the Codex 
Claromontanus, is found in the National Library, at Paris. 
It contains the Epistles of St. Paul, with the exception of 
only a few verses. The Latin translation represents a text 
anterior to St. Jerome, but very considerably altered from its 
primitive form to bring it into closer conformity with the 
corresponding Greek Text. 

The gradual decadence of round uncial hand during and 
after the sixth century, is well described in E. M. THomp- 
son, Handbook of Greek and Latin Palzography, p. 152, 
sqq.; and the contents of the secondary uncial MSS., 
together with their leading palzographic features, will be 
found in. F. H. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the 


1 HAMMOND, op. Cit., p. 133. 


248 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Textual Criticism of the New Testament, vol. i, chaps. v 
and vi. 


2. Cursive Manuscripts. Incomparably more numer- 
ous than the Uncial Codices, because more recent in date, 
and more easily multiplied, are the Cwrszve Manuscripts, 
which were written between the ninth and the middle of the 
fifteenth century, when the invention of the art of printing 
. substituted a much easier and cheaper mode of producing 
books. A few, however, were written in the sixteenth 
century. Their total number exceeds 3,550, about thirty of 
which are either complete or nearly so. Dr. Gregory, in 
the second part of his Prolegomena, gives the following 
account of the extant cursive MSS.: 





Gospels, . : . : ; . 1,272 

Acts and Catholic Epistles, : ; . 416 

St. Paul’s Epistles,: «) . : ; ; 480 

Apocalypse, : , 183 

Lectionaries | Gospels, 936 1,201 
{ Apostles, 265 ; 

35553 


Whence it appears that after the MSS. which exhibit the 
continuous text of the Gospels, those are most numerous 
which contain the disjointed extracts from the Gospels (they 
are also called Avangelistaria), and from the Acts and 
Epistles (they are also called Praxapostoli), to be read in 
public services, and which, for this reason, are known under 
the general name of Lectionaries. 

While the Uncial Codices are designated by the capital 
letters usually of the Latin and of the Greek alphabets, the 
cursive MSS. are indicated by Arabic numerals. They are 
written in current hand, on vellum or parchment, or on cotton 
paper which came into use in the ninth and tenth centuries, 
or finally on linen paper, which was employed first in the 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 249 


twelfth century. Uncial writing continued, however, in the 
transcription of Lectionaries, some time after it had ceased 
to be used for ordinary copies. Some of the cursives are 
richly illuminated ; almost all abound in abbreviations and 
contractions. Naturally enough, the cursive style of writ- 
ing, when practically a new one for literary purposes, was 
traced with considerable care by the scribes ; but it gradually 
degenerated, and only in liturgical MSS. did custom react 
to some extent, and thus serve to retard the disuse of the 
stiffer forms of older times.’ 

Many cursive MSS. have been studied by recent critics, 
and it is highly probable that further work in that direction 
will not alter materially the general conclusions which have 
been reached regarding the text which they exhibit. Some 
twenty or thirty among them (MSS. 13, 17, 33, 61, for in- 
stance) have considerable importance in the eyes of critics 
because of their agreement with the oldest uncial author- 
ities. But by far the great majority of the cursives contain 
a comparatively late text, which is now known as the Syrzan 
Text, and was apparently used by St. John Chrysostom 
(t 407) and other ecclesiastical writers in the second part 
of the fourth century.” 


§ 3. Third Period (the Printed Editions). 


Te he textus Receptus.’» Ihe Greek New Testa- 
ment was not printed in full before the beginning of the 
sixteenth century. The first complete edition was that 
prepared at Alcala de Henares, in Spain, under the direc- 
tion and at the expense of Cardinal X1MENEs. It forms the 
fifth volume of the magnificent Polyglot edition published 

1 For details, cfr. E. M. THompson, op. cit., chap. xii. 


2 Cfr. Westcott and Hort, Introduction to’ the New Testament in the Original 
Greek, Part iii, Sections ii and iii; etc. 


250 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


by the Spanish Cardinal,’ and called from the Latin name 
of the place, Zhe Complutensian (from Complutum). ‘The 
New Testament was completed in January 10, 1514, but did 
not appear till 1522, five years after the death of Ximenes. 
The particular MSS. from which the Complutensian Text is 
drawn are not specified by its editors, except in the vague 
and exaggerated terms “ antiquissima et emendatissima ;” 
but it is certain that they all contained a text of compara- 
tively late origin. 

While Ximenes’ edition was being prepared, John Froben, 
a printer of Basle, hearing of the Cardinal’s design, and 
desirous to anticipate it, asked the celebrated Hellenist, 
ERASMUS (f 1536), to prepare an edition that would be the 
first published. The work, done in great haste, appeared in 
1516. It was carried out with little criticism on the basis 
of only four cursive MSS., contained several minor interpo- 
lations derived directly from the Latin Vulgate, and in par- 
ticular a passage of the Apocalypse xxii, 15-26, which Eras- 
mus had boldly re-translated from the Latin, because his 
Greek MS. was defective. Of the subsequent editions of 
Erasmus, the fourth one (in 1527) corrected by the Com- 
plutensian Text, is of special importance, inasmuch as it 
became the basis of the ‘‘ Textus Receptus.”’ 

It was with the help of the fourth and fifth editions of 
Erasmus and of some 15 MSS., that Robert STEPHENS 
published his four editions of the Greek New Testament 
(1546, 1549, 1550, 1551). The third of these, known as 
the Laitio Regia, was in fact, a little more than a reprint 
of the fourth edition of Erasmus. Stephens’ fourth edition 
contains exactly the same text as his third, with this peculiar- 
ity, however, that it is the first printed text divided into our 
modern verses. 


1 For an elaborate description of this magnificent work, cfr. HEFELE, Card. Ximenes, 
chap. xi, 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 251 


Theodore BEza prepared and published four folio editions 
of Stephens’ Greek Text, with occasionally a few changes on 
MS. authority (1565, 1582, 1589, 1598). It was practically 
also the text of Stephens, that the brothers Bonaventure 
and Abraham Elzevir, enterprising publishers of Leyden, in 
Holland, brought out in their neatly gotten-up and handy 
editions of the Greek Testament. Their first edition had met 
with such success, that in their second edition in 1633, they 
boldly said in their preface to the reader: “ Zextum, ergo 
habes, ab omnibus receptum ; ’? whence arose the title “ Zextis 
Receptus,” as applied to the text of the Greek New Testament 
in common use during the following centuries.’ 

The more one inquires into the history of this so-called 
“ Textus Receptus,” the less is it possible to ascribe to 
it much critical value. It is certain that only a few recent 
MSS. were utilized in its formation, and that their various 
readings were mostly placed in the margin, instead of being 
used in constructing the text. Again, when these various 
readings were used to form the text, they were employed 
on no fixed principles, and without anything like a correct 
appreciation of their relative antiquity and value. The 
earliest editors were apparently satisfied with publishing the 
first text which came to hand ; and those who followed them 
too often did little more than to make choice from among 
the existing printed readings. The work of these pioneers 
should not, however, be judged severely. It naturally bears 
the impress of the time when Textual Criticism was in its 
infancy, that is of a period when materials could not as yet 
have been gathered in sufficient quantity, and when the lack 
of proper methods prevented scholars from turning to the 
best advantage even the materials placed at their disposal. 


1 For further information, see S. P. TREGELLEs, An Account of the Printed Text 
of the New Testament, pp. 1-36; CHAvuviN, Lecons d’Introduction Générale, pp. 272- 
277; F. H. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction, etc., vol. ii, chap. vii; Reuss, History of 
the Sacred Scriptures of the New Testament, vol. ii, pp. 406-423 (Engl. ‘Transl.). 


252 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


It also betrays a haste and lack of care which, to us, seem 
little in harmony with the reverence due to the Word of God. 
On the other hand, had the early editors meddled more than 
they did with the text before them, it is beyond doubt that 
their lack of information and skill would have led them to 
publish an edition much inferior to the ‘“ Textus Receptus.” 
In simply bringing forth the text within their reach, they 
printed the New Testament pretty much as it had been 
transmitted for centuries in the Greek Church, and conse- 
quently in a form which presents the substance of the 
original with great faithfulness. Nay more, recent critics 
who cannot in any way be accused of bias in favor of the 
“ Textus Receptus,” grant that a very large number of its 
peculiar readings can be traced back to the second part of 
the fourth century, that is, to the very period to which our 
oldest uncial MSS. are generally referred.’ 


2. The Critical Editions. Whatever may be thought of 
the exact value of the “ Textus Receptus,” there is no doubt 
that ever since its publication it has played the greatest part 
in the transmission of the original Greek of the New Testa- 
ment. During the second part of the seventeenth century, 
leading critics, such as WALTON, COURCELLES, FELL, held it 
in so great estimation that they never thought of improving 
it, by the introduction of any of the numerous readings which 
they published together with it.2 The first to undermine, 
but not to shake, its authority, was John MIL1, whose Greek 
Testament (printed in 1707) is based on the text of Stephens of 
1550, and presents a large critical apparatus of about 30,000 
various readings. Surprised and somewhat disturbed by this 


1 Cfr. Westcorr and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, vol. ii. 

2 The work of Walton, published in 1657, forms the 5th and 6th vols. of the London 
Polyglot, and deserves special notice. The 5th volume contains the readings of the 
Codex Alexandrinus at the foot of the ‘Textus Receptus,” while the 6th volume is 
made up of a large collection of various readings (cfr. SCRIVENER, op. Cit., vol. ii, 


P. 197, $q.). 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 253 


hitherto unsuspected number of variations, BENGEL, the ceie- 
brated author of the Gromon Novi Testamenti, resolved to 
examine what could be the real bearing of so many different 
readings upon the data of the Christian faith. After years 
of study, he came to the conclusion that all these variations 
left intact the great doctrines of Christendom, and published 
(in 1734) what may be considered as the earliest “ critical” 
edition of the Greek New Testament. His text embodies 
numerous intentional departures from the received type, and 
most of his changes have been approved by later critics. It 
is to Bengel also that we owe the first attempt at distributing 
the documents into “‘ companies, families, tribes, and nations,” 
according to the degree of affinity which he noticed be- 
tween certain MS. versions and ecclesiastical writers. This 
theory of famelies or recenstons was further elaborated by 
GRIESBACH (f 1812), who classified the materials under three 
recensions, which he called the Western, the Alexandrian, 
and the Constantinopolitan, because he believed that the 
origin of these three distinct texts could be traced back to 
Rome, Alexandria, and Constantinople. Griesbach’s text, 
generally made according to sound principles of criticism, 
has been the basis of many manual editions of Schott, 
Knapp, Tittmann, Hahn, and Theile. 

“A new era in Textual Criticism began in 1831, when, 
for the first time, a text was constructed directly from the 
ancient dccuments without the intervention of any printed 
edition, and when the first systematic attempt was made 
to substitute scientific method for arbitrary choice in the 
discrimination of various readings.” * In both respects, the 
editor, Carl LACHMANN (f 1851), was the worthy predecessor 
of the great critics of the latter part of the nineteenth century, 
of Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Westcott and Hort. His 
object was “to restore the oldest obtainable text, 1e., the 


1 Westcott and Hort, Greek Test., vol. ii, p. 13. 


254 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


text.of the fourth century, yet not as a fa/ text, but simply 
as a sure Azstorical basis for further operations of internal 
criticism, which might lead us in some cases still nearer to 
the primitive text.” In reality, when he issued his large 
edition, the Codex Sznazticus had not yet been discovered, and 
the Codex Vaticarus and other uncials had not been criti- 
cally edited; so that his ambition of giving to the world the 
textus traditus of the fourth century could hardly be real- 
ized. His chief authority was the Codex Vaticanus. 

Far more enterprising than Lachmann, Constantin von 
TISCHENDORF (1815-1874), aimed at publishing not only the 
oldest, but also the best, text, with the aid of all authorities. 
For this purpose he spared neither time, nor journeys, nor 
editions, till he brought out his masterly ovum Testa- 


’ completed in 1872, 


mentum Greece, etc., Lipsie, edit. octava,’ 
2 vols., with a full critical apparatus.* ‘This is beyond 
question the most full and comprehensive edition of the 
Greek Testament existing; it contains the results of the 
latest collations and discoveries, and as copious a body of 
various readings as is compatible with the design of adapt- 
ing it for general use, though Tischendorf’s notes are not 
sufficiently minute as regards the cursive MSS. to supersede 
the need of perpetually consulting the labors of preceding 
critics.” * In this great critical edition, Tischendorf is some- 
what biased by the readings of the Codex Sznaztécus, which, 
as already stated, he had discovered during his Eastern jour- 
neys. It must also be added, that his work is far from being 
complete as regards the versions and quotations, which he 


1 Philip ScHarr, A Companion to the Greek Text and the English Version, 4th edit. 
p. 255. 

2 A smaller edition in one vol. gives the same text with the principal readings. The 
best manual edition of Tischendorf’s Text, with the readings of subsequent editors, 
(Tregelles, Westcott and Hort), is by Oscar von GEBHARDT (Leipsig, 1881). 

3 SCRIVENER, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 235. The Prolegomena to the 8th edition of Tischen- 
dorf, were written by two American scholars, Prof. GreGory of Leipsig, and Dr. Ezra 
Aspot of Cambridge (Mass.). 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 255 


had probably no time to examine in anything like the pto- 
longed and painstaking manner in which he collated the 
great uncial MSS. 

Contemporary with Tischendorf was Samuel Prideaux 
TREGELLES (1813-1875), who did not think that he could 
venture on the publication of the only edition of the New 
Testament which we possess from him, before he had spent 
twenty years in its preparation. He also resorted to “ ancient 
authorities ” alone in the construction of his revised text, and 
refused not only to the “ Textus Receptus,” but even to the 
great mass of MSS., all voice in determining the true read- 
ings. In fact, as Tischendorf had been biased by the 
Sinaiticus, so was he by the Codex Vaticanus; and this 
detracts considerably from the value of his edition. It 
should be noticed that by collating many of the principal 
uncial MSS. independently of Tischendorf, Tregelles “has 
afforded the learned world the unspeakable advantage of 
two independent witnesses.” ' 

It was on these two great editors that Dean Henry 
ALFORD (1810-1871), depended for his critical materials in 
his Greek Testament. ‘“ All he desired to do was to form a 
critical text from the materials supplied by other investi- 
gators. Times, alas! were not ripe for such a text, for 
principles of criticism are just the great desiderata; and 
Alford also errs by unwarrantable reliance on a few of the 
oldest uncials.” * 

The last critical edition to be mentioned here is that of 
Westcotr and Hort, published in two volumes in 1881. 
The first volume contains the text adopted by the learned 
editors after twenty-eight years of labor ; the second, a critical 
Introduction and Appendix, in which they expose and justify 
their theories. Their aim is to reproduce the autograph 


1 A. Cave, An Introduction to Theology, 2d edit., p. 290. 
2 A, Cave, ibid. 


256 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


text, that is, “the original words of the New Testament so 
far as they now can be determined from surviving docu- 
ments.” For this purpose they rely exclusively on the docu- 
mentary evidence which they find embodied in the great 
editions of Tischendorf and Tregelles, and which they dis- 
tribute into four types of text: . 

(1) The Syrian, or Antiochian, matured by the Greek and 
Syrian Fathers in the latter part of the fourth century, and 
found in the Codex Alexandrinus (in the Gospels), in the 
Syriac Peshitto, in St. John Chrysostom (f 407), in the later 
Greek Fathers, in the great mass of the cursive MSS., and 
practically also in the “ Textus Receptus.” As it is the result 
of two authoritative recensions made between 250 and 350 
A. D. by men desirous to combine and harmonize pre-existing 
texts, “it presents the New Testament in a form smooth 
and attractive, but appreciably impoverished in sense and 
force, more fitted for cursory perusal, or recitation, than for 
repeated and diligent study.”’* The distinctively Syrian 
readings must at once be rejected, and give way to the 
*“‘ Pre-Syrian ” readings, of which they are an altered form. 

(2) The Western Text, most easily recognized in the old 
Latin Version, and in the few extant bilingual uncials 
(D 1, D 2) written in Italy and Gaul, as also in the writings 
of the ante-Nicene Fathers not connected with Alexandria 
(Justin, Irenzeus, Hippolytus, Methodius, and even Euse- 
bius). Its leading characteristics are a love of paraphrase, 
and a disposition to enrich the text by parallel passages in 
the Gospel and additions from traditional sources.” 

(3) The Alexandrian, or Egyptian Text, found in the 
abundant quotations of Clement of Alexandria, Origen, 
Dionysius, Didymus, Cyril of Alexandria, and partly also, of 
Eusebius of Caesarea, and in the Egyptian versions (especially 


1 Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, vol. ii, p. 135 
2 Westcotr and Hort, ibid, pp. 122-126. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 257 


the Memphitic). This text “cannot be later in date than the 
opening years of the third century, and may possibly be 
much earlier.” It is characterized by ‘the absence of extra- 
neous matter,’ and by ‘a delicate philological tact” in 
changes of language. ‘We often find the Alexandrian 
group opposed to all other documents, often the Alexandrian 
and Syrian groups combined in opposition to the others, 
implying an adoption of an Alexandrian reading by the 
Syrian Text.” ' 
(4) The Meutral Text, so called because looked upon as 
‘free from the glaring corruption of the Western, from the 
smooth assimilations of the Syrian, and from the grammatical 
purism of the Alexandrian type.”’ Only two documents come 
under this last head, Codd. B and x, and of these two, when 
they differ, B is preferable to 8, which has a not inconsider- 
able Western element; besides that the scribe’s bold and 
rough manner has rendered “ all the ordinary lapses due to 
rapid and careless transcription more numerous than in B.”’? 
Yet with certain light exceptions, which are carefully speci- 
fied, it is our learned authors’ belief “ (1) that the readings 
of » Bshould be accepted as the true readings until strong 
internal evidence is found to the contrary, and (2) that no 
readings of 8 B can safely be rejected absolutely, though it 
is sometimes right to place them only on an alternative 
footing, especially where they receive no support from ver- 
sions and Fathers;’’3 and this, their pre-eminence, in our 
critics’ judgment, “is due to the extreme, and, as it were, 
primordial antiquity of the common original from which 
the ancestries of the two MSS. have diverged, the date of 
which cannot be later than the earlier part of the second 


994 


century, and may well be yet earlier. 


1 Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, vol. ii, pp. 132- 
reer 2 Westcott and Hort, vol. ii, p. 246. SeUDICgnpee2 ss 
# Westcotr and Hort, ibid, Pp. 223; SCRIVENER, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 289. 


| 


258 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


It is in accordance with this classification of the sources, 
and on the basis of the practically supreme value of the two 
Codices x and B (more particularly of Codex B) that the 
text of Westcott and Hort has been elaborated. The erudi- 
tion and skill displayed by these learned editors have won 
the admiration of critics at large; such prominent scholars, 
however, as F. H. Scrivener, J. P. Martin, Godet, etc., do 
not think that even this edition truly offers the oldest and 
purest text attainable at present. They point to the fact 
that the assumption by Westcott and Hort of a twofold and 
authoritative recension which would have been made by the 
Greek and Syrian Fathers between 250 and 350 A. D. is based 
upon a critical conjecture rather than on historical evidence. 
They think also that the same editors have too readily taken 
it for granted that the quotations of the Fathers and the 
testimony of the early versions have been fully examined 
and duly appreciated. Finally, they deprecate as unwar- 
ranted the supreme value which Westcott and Hort ascribe 
to the Codex Vaticanus, especially when associated with the 
Codex Sinaiticus.’ 


3. Concluding Remarks. Although very brief, our 
sketch of the history of the Greek New Testament leads us to 
the conclusion that critics have not yet secured a fva/ text, that 
is, one which would commend itself as a faithful transcript of 
the primitive copies published by the sacred writers. The 
process of restoration is very complicated and difficult, and 
in all cases where the evidence is almost equally divided, it 
yields only probable results. Furthermore, while the Uncial 
Codices have been thoroughly examined, the cursive MSS., 
carly versions and patristic citations require much more 


« 


1 For detailed criticism of the edition of Westcott and Hort, see Dean Burcon, The 
Revision Revised, article 111, p. 235, sqq; and the more moderate remarks of SCRIVENER, 
op. cit., vol. ii, p. 291, sqq. 


HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 259 


work than has been spent on them to allow their testimony 
its full weight in the construction of the sacred text. 

It is true that, with all the variations, the editions of Lach- 
mann, Tischendorf, Tregelles and Westcott and Hort present 
substantially one and the same text,’ and that consequently 
a new “ Textus Receptus ”’ seems to have been formed. But 
it should be borne in mind that this agreement of the leading 
critics of the nineteenth century is due, to a large extent, to 
their overestimate of a few Uncial Codices, particularly of the 
Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus, to the detriment of nine- 
teen-twentieths of the extant documents. There is therefore 
ample room for further work to secure the best attainable 
text, that is one which will be based on the impartial and 
scientific use of every single source of information. 

1 They all agree in rejecting the authenticity of such important passages of the 
“Textus Receptus,’”’ as the last twelve verses of St. Mark; the section referring to the 
woman taken in adultery (John vii, 53-vili, 11) ; the two verses referring to the sweat of 


blood of Jesus (Luke xxii, 43, 44); the testimony of the heavenly witnesses in the first 
Epistle of St. John v, 7 ; etc. 


SYNOPSIS OFsCE APE RX) 


ANCIENT GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


}. 
THE 
SEPTUAGINT 


VERSION: 


OTHER GREEK 


VERSIONS: 


: 
‘ 


its? charac. 


. Subsequent 





. Its historical importance. 


What is legendary in testimonies 
concerning it. 


patel ine is commonly admitted (date, 


place of origin, authors). 


Literary qualities. 
Differs considerably 
from our Hebrew 
Text. 
Textual Points to a Hebrew 
4 Text different from 
the Massoretic. 
Helps to correct our 
present Hebrew 
| - Text. 


tens 
Features : 





f Rapid and wide circulation obtained 
by the LXX. 
The labors of Origen, Lucian and 
Hesychius. 
Principal MSS. and printed edi- 
tions. 


history : 


Recent efforts to recover the original text of the 
Septuagint. 
Aquila. 
Theodotion. Origin and leading features. 


Symmachus. |[ 
260 


SECOND DIVISION. 


ieetio. Oh vn Ores Hite rINGIP Al VERSIONS 
OF ETIESBIBCE: 


Cli Ply ieeX Tle 
ANCIENT GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
§ 1. Zhe Septuagint Version.’ 


1. Its Historical Importance. The sacred writings 
of the old Testament have been transmitted to us not only in 
the original Hebrew, but also in other languages into which 
they were at several times translated. Foremost among 
these various translations ranks the old Greek Version of 
the Hebrew Bible, known as “ Zhe Septuagint.” 

It was the first translation of Holy Writ to come into ex- 
istence, and long before the Christian era it was substituted 
in the place of the original Hebrew in the public services of 
the Greek-speaking Jews dispersed throughout the world. It 
contributed powerfully to spread among the Gentiles the ex- 
pectation of the coming Messias, and to introduce into the 
Greek language such theological words and ideas as would 
make of it a more fitting instrument for the diffusion of the 


1 Much of what will be found in the following pages appeared already in The Ameri- 
can Ecclesiastical Review, August, 1896, p. 152, sqq. 

2 Some scholars have supposed on the testimony of the Jewish philosopher Aristobu- 
‘lus (second century B. c.), that there was an earlier translation of “ the Law; this is 
now universally given up (cfr. BunL, Canon and Text of the Old Testament, p. 108, sq., 
Eng}. Transl.). 


261 


262 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Gospel. Even in Palestine at the time of Our Lord, the 
Jewish rabbis recognized as legitimate the use of this Greek 
translation, and the Jewish priest and historian Josephus 
used it freely in his writings. 

All this, however, was but the prelude of the wide in- 
fluence and great authority which were to be acquired by the 
Septuagint in the Christian Church. To it, and not to the 
Hebrew Text, must be directly referred almost all the cita- 
tions of the Old Testament which we notice in the inspired 
writings of the New. All the Fathers of the primitive 
Church depended entirely upon it for the knowledge they 
obtained and the use they made of the Scriptures of the old 
Covenant. Even when Latin translations appeared, they 
were made adrectly and “iterally from the Septuagint Version. 
Indeed, it may be said that, up to the middle of the sixth 
century, when the Latin translation, which St. Jerome had 
made directly from the original Hebrew, was everywhere 
adopted in the Western churches, the Septuagint remained 
practically—either immediately, or mediately, through the old 
Latin versions,—the translation of the Old Testament uni- 
versally received in the Christian Church. So widespread 
in fact was its authority and so great the reverence shown it 
during that long period, that many Fathers, among whom are 
reckoned St. Justin® (7 about 167), St.: Irenzus* ({ 262); 
St. Cyril of Jerusalem 3 (fF 386), St. Augustine 4 (fF 430), did 
not hesitate to ascribe to the Greek translators the positive 
help of avine inspiration. 

These are most important facts, and they enable us to 
understand why this old version has remained down to the 
present day in the Greek Church, the standard text of the 

1 Hortatory Address to the Greeks, chap. xiii. It must be said, however, that the 
genuineness of this work is still disputed. 
? Against Heresies, Book iii, chap. xxi, §§ 2, 4. 


3 Catech. iv, chap. xxxiv. 
# On the City of God, Book xviii, chap. xliii. 


ANCIENT GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 263 


Old Testament entirely substituted in place of the original 
Hebrew; why, when selecting the Latin Vulgate as the 
official text of the Latin Church, the Council of Trent 
explicitly recognized the full authority of the Septuagint ; 
why, in compliance with the wishes of many of the Fathers 
of Trent, Pope Sixtus V published an authentic edition of 
this same Greek Version ; and why recent biblical scholars 
have devoted a large amount of time and labor to determine 
the exact relation in which the Septuagint stands to the 
Hebrew Text and to its principal translations. 


2. Its Origin. But while the supreme historical im- 
portance of the Septuagint Version is patent to all, its origin 
is, on the contrary, surrounded with the greatest obscurity. 
The earliest document connected with its appearance is the 
legend which recounts the manner in which the translation 
of the Pentateuch originated. The King of Egypt, Ptolemy 
Philadelphus (B.c. 285-247), we are told, had recently 
established a library in Alexandria, his capital, and at the 
suggestion of his head librarian, Demetrius Phalereus, he 
determined to enrich it with a copy in Greek of the sacred 
writings of the Jews. Thereupon he was advised by one of 
his distinguished officers, Aristeas by name, to set free the 
thousands of Jewish slaves who were in the various parts of 
the kingdom, in order that he might thereby secure the good 
will and help of the Jewish authorities at Jerusalem to carry 
out his design. This he did with royal liberality; and a 
long procession of these freed men started for the holy 
city, bearing with them most costly presents for the Temple, 
together with a letter from the king, requesting Eleazar, the 
high priest, to send a copy of “ the Law,” and Jewish scholars 
capable of translating it. ) 

In compliance with the request, Eleazar sends down to 
Egypt beautiful parchment manuscripts of the Pentateuch, 


264 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


written in golden letters, and six learned men out of each 
tribe, seventy-two in all,’ to carry out the great work of the 
translation. During seven days the interpreters have 
audiences of the king, and excite the admiration of all by 
the wisdom with which they answer seventy-two questions, 
after which lodgings are assigned to them in the island of 
Pharos, away from the bustle of the capital. There they 
complete their work in seventy-two days, and it obtains the 
formal approval of the Jews of Alexandria. Finally, King 
Ptolemy receives the translation of “the Law” with great 
reverence, and sends the interpreters home, laden with rich 
gifts for themselves and for the high priest. 

Such is the substance of a legend which has come down 
to us under the cover of a letter addressed by the above- 
named Aristeas to his brother Philocrates. Many of its 
particulars are evidently fantastic, and the glowing tribute 
of admiration which it pays to the Temple of Jerusalem, to 
the country of the Jews, to their wise and holy laws, ina 
word, to everything Jewish, points to a pious Jew, not to the 
pagan Aristeas, as its author. Nevertheless, the Letter of 
Aristeas was accepted without misgiving by Josephus,’ by 
the famous Alexandrian Jew, Philo,* by many early Fathers 
of the. Church, [notably spy oh) )) ustin, «ot eelrenwcus: 
Clement of Alexandria, and indeed by all ecclesiastical 
writers down to the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
when its authority’ was first questioned by Louis Vives 
(ft 1540), a distinguished professor of Louvain. Nay more, 
as time went on the marvellous details of the legend were 
improved upon: the seventy-two interpreters were trans- 
formed into inspired writers who worked independently of 

1 It is most likely from this number, seventy-two, that the version received the name 
of the Septuagint, which is a round figure for seventy-two and is usually denoted by the 
Latin numerals LXX. 


2 Cfr. Antiquities of the Jews, Book xii, chap. ii. 
3 De Vita Moysis, Book ii, § 5. 


ANCIENT GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 265 


each other, and yet produced a translation which upon 
examination proved to be word for word identical; they 
were moreover made to render into Greek not only the 
Pentateuch, but also all the other books of the Hebrew 
Bible.’ 

At the present day, all biblical scholars reject these 
fabulous additions to the primitive legend, and consider the 
very Letter of Aristeas as spurious. Many among them go 
even much farther. They look upon the whole story as a 
pure romance invented to add to the authority of the oldest 
Greek Version of the Jewish “ Law.” They refuse to believe 
that the translation which abounds in expressions unintelli- 
gible to Greeks could have been made for them as repre- 
sented in the legend. They point out how unlikely it is 
that the Jews of Alexandria should have adopted for their 
public services a translation of their holy ‘‘ Law ” made at the 
request of a pagan prince. Again, they tell us that the 
appearance of this Greek Version in Egypt, about the middle 
of the third century before Christ, can easily be accounted 
for otherwise than by appealing to the desire of a pagan 
king to enrich his library with a Greek translation of the 
sacred writings of the Jews. We have only to suppose 
that the Jews, so numerous in Egypt, having gradually 
ceased to be familiar with the Hebrew language, had “ the 
Law ” first interpreted orally in Greek in their synagogues, 
and that this interpretation was, after a while, for practical 
purposes, committed to writing. Finally, they appeal to the 
features of the work itself. On the one hand, it betrays an 
imperfect knowledge of Hebrew and contains mistakes 
about names of places in Palestine ; and on the other hand, 
it is filled with Egyptian words and expressions, with Greek 
forms which prevailed at Alexandria, and with free render- 


1Cfr. the passages of St. Irenzus, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Augustine, referred to 
on page 262, 


266 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


ings in striking contrast with the superstitious literalism of 
the Jewish schools. All these characteristics of the Greek 
Version of the Pentateuch make it indeed evident that it 
originated in Alexandria, as is affirmed by the legend ; but 
they point to Greek-speaking Jews of that same city as the 
translators, rather than to Jewish scholars of Jerusalem sent 
by the high priest, as the Letter of Aristeas would have us 
believe. 

In view of these weighty arguments against the historical 
character of the very core of the legend, it is easy to under- 
stand how recent writers have thought that the story deserves 
no credit, except in so far as it assigns the translation of ‘the 
Law” to the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who perhaps may 
have shown some interest in the work.’ 

Indeed even this much could hardly be inferred with cer- 
tainty from the sole Letter of Aristeas, which is not only’ 
spurious, but was manifestly written, as we perceive by its 
contents, for the purpose of increasing the authority of the 
Greek Version of the Jewish *‘ Law.”’ But from other consid- 
erations—especially from the study of the features of the 
translation—contemporary scholars conclude that the trans- 
lation of the Pentateuch was made in Alexandria by Egyptian 
Jews about the middle of the third century before Christ, 
and that it formed the first instalment of the Greek Version 
of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint. 

The other books of the Hebrew Bible were translated 
subsequently ; some probably—the Psalms, for instance— 
for liturgical purposes ; others, as may be inferred from the 
Prologue to Ecclesiasticus, with a view to spread their doc- 
trinal and ethical teachings. Whether they were rendered 
into Greek soon after the translation of the Pentateuch had 


1 For arguments in favor of the opposite view, see Lotsy, Histoire Critique du Texte et 
des Versions de la Bible (Enseignement Biblique, Jan.—Février, 1893, p. 11, sqq.); BUHL, 
logy city pears; sda, 


ANCIENT GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 267 


appeared cannot be determined with certainty. In fact, all 
that we really know about this point is that, at the time when 
the Prologue to Ecclesiasticus was written (about B.c. 130), 
almost all these books had been already translated for some 
time. Nor have we more definite information about the 
place where the translation was made, for the only historical 
aid concerning it is furnished by the conclusion of the book 
of Esther (chap. xi, 1), in which we are told that this book 
‘was interpreted in /erusalem.” History is likewise silent 
in regard to the number and gualifications of the translators. 
It is universally admitted, however, that the variations no- 
ticeable in the renderings of identical expressions and of 
parallel passages repeated in several of these books point to 
several translators,’ and that the difference in merit of the 
various portions of the translation proves that the interpret- 
ers were men of very different attainments in literary skill 
and in Hebrew scholarship. 


3. Character of the Septuagint Version. One of 
the most remarkable features exhibited by the Septuagint 
Version is connected with the Greek language in which it 
is written. As we already stated in chap. x, the Greek em- 
ployed by the Jewish interpreters was a popular form of the 
Kowh Atdédextos, which deviated much more from Attic purity 
than did the language used by men of culture. They, and 
those for whom they wrote, had learned Greek much less 
from books than from oral intercourse with the mixed popu- 
lation of Egypt and Syria; so that, even in writing, they 
naturally retained most of the peculiarities of the popular 
idiom. ‘This is why, throughout the various portions of this 
version, biblical scholars have been able to point out many 
departures not only from Attic purity and elegance, but even 
from the literary style of the good authors of the same period, 


1 For examples, see Lorsy, loc. cit., p. 19, sqq. 


268 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


to notice forms which were current chiefly in Alexandria, 
and to trace back a large number of words and expressions 
to the primitive Greek dialects out of which the Aowy Atasextog 
had gradually been formed. 

But the Septuagint translators had not only an imperfect 
knowledge of Greek, they also lacked a real command of 
Hebrew. The sacred tongue was either dead or dying, and 
all their knowledge of it was acquired by oral teaching, by 
habitual reading of the original text, and by speaking, 
though in a corrupt form, Hebrew among themselves. In 
the complete absence of grammars and dictionaries, they 
had to fall back upon tradition in regard to the interpreta- 
tion of difficult passages, when, indeed, such interpretation 
had been handed down by tradition. Thus were they greatly 
hampered in their work, being obliged to deal with two 
languages, neither of which they had really mastered, and 
whose grammar, syntax and genius are so different from each 
other. No wonder then, that their Greek, already far from 
classical, should furthermore be marred—as it is in reality 
—by Hebrew idioms, translated word for word, and that we 
should even at times notice Hebrew words simply transcribed 
in Greek letters,* because they were unable to give their 
exact meaning. Of course, in all such cases, the manner in 
which the Jewish interpreters dealt with the text is objec- 
tionable from a literary standpoint. But, as recent scholars 
have justly remarked, it has the advantage of proving the 
general faithfulness of the translators, and of enabling us to 
determine with certainty the exact reading which was found 
in their Hebrew manuscripts. 

It is plain, moreover, that they resorted to such methods 
of literal translation only in places where they were not able 


1 Here are a few instances: Gen. xxviii, 19 ty ghyy «ai OvAapmus ; Jos. vii, 24, 
DY poy Ptensxup; Judges vi, 26 yyy79 Maovex; IV Kings (Heb. II Kings) iii, 4 
\P2 Nwxyd ;etc.3 etc. 


ANCIENT GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 269 


to furnish the reader with something more satisfactory ; for 
their constant aim was to convey with great distinctness 
what they considered to be the exact meaning of the orig- 
inal. For this laudable purpose, they repeatedly changed 
the pronoun which represented the subject or object of a 
sentence into the name of the person or thing alluded to; 
thus, instead of “fe” or “Aim” in the original, we find 
“ David’ or “ Solomon,” etc.,’ in the Greek translation. 
Again, they did not scruple to add a word or two to render 
clearer the meaning of an obscure sentence, or to supply 
what appeared to be an ellipsis in the Hebrew Text. 
Changes of the kind were manifestly calculated to enhance 
the literary merit of the translation, and they do not offer 
much difficulty to modern biblical scholars, who, in their 
efforts to improve our present Hebrew Text, can easily take 
them into account when they compare the Septuagint Version 
with the original Hebrew. | 

At other times exegetical considerations have had great 
weight with the Greek interpreters, and have led them to 
handle the text with a freedom which we would hardly con- 
sider allowable nowadays to translators of the sacred text. 
Not only did they suppress the ancient proper name of the 
God of Israel, the true pronunciation of which is Yahweh, 
and substitute in its place the word ‘0 Aédpros (the Lord),' 
but they sedulously changed expressions which they thought 
could be misunderstood or used to establish some false doc- 
trine. Thus in the Hebrew Text of Exodus xxiv, 10, we 
read that the ancients of Israel who went up towards Mount 
Sinai with Moses “ saw the God of Israel.’”? This expression, 
it was thought, could not be rendered literally without sug- 
gesting that the spiritual God can be seen by the bodily 


1 This change was effected under the influence of the superstitious reverence of the 
Hebrew-speaking Jews who, in reading or-even transcribing the sacred text, substituted 
Aponat (the Lord) or in certain cases ELontm (God) in place of the most sacred name, 
YAHWEH. 


270 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


eyes of men, and without offering an apparent contradiction 
to Exodus xxxill, 20, ‘‘ No man shall see Me and live.” In 
consequence the translators changed it and said: ‘“ They 
saw the place where the God of Israel had stood.” In like 
manner, the Hebrew phrase “to see the form of Yahweh ” 
becomes in the same version “to see the glory of God.” ' 
Other similar anthropomorphisms were so modified as to re- 
move much of their unwelcome character; as for instance, 
when the Hebrew expressions in Genesis xvi, 6: ‘It repented 
Yahweh that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved 
Him at 7s heart, and said . . . ,” are changed into: “ God 
thought that He had made man on the earth, and He reflected, 
and said...” Obviously, in these and such other cases 
the primitive reading is that of the Hebrew Text.’ 

Such then are the principal literary features exhibited by 
the Septuagint Version. They appear in all its books, al- 
though, as might naturally be expected, their character varies 
considerably in its several parts. Thus, for instance, the 
Pentateuch is by far the best rendered in respect of clear- 
ness, care and elegance; on the contrary, the translation of 
Isaias is poor and paraphrastic ; the translation of Job and 
Proverbs bespeaks a fair knowledge of Hebrew, together 
with a comparatively free handling of the text, while that of 
Ezechiel, Paralipomenon, Canticle of eee ae and Eccle- 
siastes is very literal. 

It is plain, therefore, that the oldest Greek Version of the 
Hebrew Bible bears in its style the impress of the various 
circumstances of time and place in the midst of which it was 
made, and of the exegetical views of the translators. Nor 
is it less certain that these literary features must not be lost 
sight of, whenever we wish to utilize the LXX for the im- 


1 Cfr. Numb. xii, 8; Ps. xvii, (in Greek, Ps. xvi), 15, etc. 
2 For other examples, cfr. W. R. Sm1Tu, The Old Testament inthe Jewish Church, p. 
77, sq. (2d edit.). 


ANCIENT GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 271 


provement of our present Hebrew Text, although they can- 
not in any way compare in importance with the textual feat- 
ures which we have now briefly to point out.’ 

The first of these textual features regards the numerous 
and important differences which exist between the Septua- 
gint and our Hebrew Bible. The /entateuch is certainly 
the portion of Holy Writ in which these textual differences 
are least considerable. And yet, even in the Pentateuch, 
especially in the book of Exodus, biblical scholars have 
pointed out several important variations from the Hebrew 
Text in the form of additions, omissions, inversions, etc.’ 
They have moreover noticed that throughout the Pentateuch 
the Septuagint presents numberless differences of detail, the 
significance of which has appeared the greater in their eyes 
because in many of these passages the Greek Version agrees 
with the Samaritan Pentateuch, a form of the Hebrew Text, 
which, as stated in chapter ix, goes back at least to the 
fifth century before our era. 

Many of the variations noticeable in the Books of Kings 
are far more extensive. Thus in III Kings we remark 
after the first verse of chap. ili, an addition of 19 lines; 
verse 46 in the same chapter (in the Septuagint) has been 
increased by an addition of 1g lines also; and in chap. 
xii so much has been added to verse 24 that in the LXX 
it has 68 long lines instead of the two or three it should 
naturally have, if it were a simple translation of our Hebrew 
Text. Several omissions are on the same extensive scale 
asthe additions just spoker of. Thus in the narrative of 
David and Goliath in chap. xvii of the first book of Kings, 
the Septuagint omits the verses 12-31, 41, 50, 55-58; again 

t Asin sketching the History of the Old Testament Canon, we examined the fac 
that the Septuagint contains several books and parts of books overand above those of 
the Hebrew Bible, we shall not come back here on this most important textual differ- 


ence between the LX X and the Hebrew Text. 
2 Cfr. Numb. iv, 14; x, 6; Exod. xii, 10; xxvili, 23-28; xxxv, 13-18, etc. 


272 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


in [II Kings, chap. ix, verses 15-25, recording Solomon’s 
dealings with Pharao, with the remnant of the Chanaanite 
population and with his own subjects, are entirely omitted ; in 
chap. xiv of the same book, the first twenty verses contain- 
ing the prediction of the fate of the family of Jeroboam are 
likewise omitted, etc. Transpositions of long passages are 
also to be found in the Septuagint Version ; as, for instance, 
in III Kings, where the first twelve verses of chap. vii 
are placed after verse 51 of the same chapter, and where 
chap. xxi occurs before chap. xx. 

The Prophetical Writings abound likewise in important 
textual differences. This is especially true of Ezechiel, and 
more particularly still of /eremzas.' In the last named 
prophet, the oracles “ Against the Nations” contained in 
chaps. xlvi-li in the Hebrew are inserted—and ina different 
order—immediately after chap. xxiv, 13, in the Septuagint. 
Beside these transpositions we find important omissions 
(chap. xvii, I-43; xxvii, a great part of verses 5-22; xxix, 
16-20; XXxill, 14-26; Xxxix, 4-13, etc., etc.). In fact, no 
less than 2,700 words, or one-eighth of the entire book, are 
not represented in this oldest Greek translation. 

The textual differences exhibited by the book of Jeremias 
have more than their counterpart in at least one of the 
poetical works of the Bible, viz., the book of Proverbs. 
They are most considerable in the second part of this book, 
and consist in (1) oméssions : xi, 4; xiii, 63; xvi, 1-43 xviii, 
23-24 5 XIX; I-52, exXe qd Qa axxten 5 XX 00, XX? ree ie 
8; (2) transpositions: the third verse of chap. xix in the 
Hebrew is the last verse of. chap. xvill in the Septuagint; 
in chap. xx of the LXX verses 20-22 are placed between 
verses 9 and 10; after the verse 22 of chap. xxiv, we read 


1 We do not intend to dwell here on the textual features of the book of DazzeZ, the 
Septuagint translation of which differs very much from the Hebrew Text, and was sup- 
planted in the Church by that of Theodotion in the second part of the second century. 


ANCIENT GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 273 


xxix, 27 followed by four distichs nowhere found in the 
Hebrew, ctc.; (3) additions : proverbs are inserted between 
Ke alice xe ext, Onan x1 Gas) xi t Biandixu, 12°; in chap, 
xvi no less than five proverbs not found in the Hebrew Text 
are also added, etc., etc.’ 

In the book of /oé we notice most important omissions. 
Unfortunately, even in the Codex Vaticanus, the Septuagint 
translation of this book has been much tampered with, so 
that it has long been difficult to realize their number and 
character. Within the last few years, however, copies of 
the book of Job inan Egyptian translation called the Swhzdic 
have been discovered, and have allowed some biblical 
scholars to reach conclusions which they consider definitive 
about these omissions, for both intrinsic and_ extrinsic 
reasons tend to prove that the Egyptian translation was 
made directly from the Septuagint when this Greek Version 
was still in its primitive form. Now in these copies the 
omissions amount to about 400 lines;* so that the whole 
book, as it probably stood originally in the Septuagint, was 
about one-sixth shorter than in our Hebrew Bible. 

It is not necessary that we should pursue further this in- 
dication of textual differences between the LXX and the orig- 
inal Hebrew. Those which have just been pointed out are 
more than sufficient to vindicate the general position assumed 
by most recent biblical scholars, Catholic and Protestant 
alike. Even admitting that a large number of minor vari- 
ations are due to mistakes on the part of the Septuagint in- 
terpreters to a freedom of translation which amounts to 
paraphrase, etc., it is certain that the numerous and larger 


-1 For other differences, see ViGouroux, Manuel Biblique, vol. ii, No. 822, foot- 
note. Cfr. also Prof. Toy, The Book of Proverbs, p. xxxii, sq. 

2 Cfr. Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, p. 431 (sixth 
edit ); and art. Job, in Hastines, A Dictionary of the Bible, vol. ii, p. 664. As-early 
as the beginning of the third century these very extensive omissions had been noticed 

(cfr. eee Letter to Africanus, § 4). 

f I 


274 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


variations above mentioned lead to the conclusion that the 
Hebrew Text which lay before the Greek translators differed 
very considerably from the Hebrew Text in the form in 
which it has come down to us. This conclusion is pressed 
upon us especially in connection with the books distinct 
fromthe Pentateuch, for the larger differences noticeable in 
them are so extensive, so numerous, so constantly combined 
with minor variations of a similar kind that they clearly 
point to a Hebrew original different from the Massoretic 
Text.’ But even in regard to the Pentateuch this same con- 
clusion should be admitted, because on the one hand there 
is a very large number of passages in which the text pre- 
supposed by the Septuagint agrees with the Samaritan Pen- 
tateuch over against the readings of our Hebrew Bible, and, 
on the other hand, there is no ground for affirming that 
either the LXX or the Samaritan Pentateuch were influenced 
by each other. 

Taking it, then, for granted that the Septuagint Version 
points to a Hebrew original different from our existing 
Hebrew Text, the question naturally arises, Which of the 
two texts is the primitive? The problem is an intricate 
one, and has received different solutions during the last 
three centuries, some scholars contending for the exclusive 
purity of the Massoretic Text, others maintaining the superi- 
ority of the Septuagint. The claims of each text to repre- 
sent the very words of the primitive copies have been greatly 
exaggerated by their respective advocates, and it is only 
gradually that more moderate, and consequently more cor- 
rect, views have been adopted by biblical critics. At the 
present day all well-informed and unprejudiced_ scholars 
admit that in a very large number of cases the purer reading 


1 In connection with the book of Proverbs, for instance, Vicouroux (Manuel Bib- 
lique, vol. ii, No. 822), does not hesitate to say: “‘ Most of the variations are derived 
from a different Hebrew original.” 


ANCIENT GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 275 


has been preserved by the old Greek translation, and that 
“there are few books of the Old Testament in which the 
Massoretic Text may not, more or less frequently, be 
emended by help of the LXX.” ' 

It should be noticed, however, that in the correction of 
the Hebrew Bible the Septuagint Version must be used with 
great caution, because the translators rendered at times the 
original text with great freedom, and also because their 
work underwent important alterations in the course of 
ages. 


4. Subsequent History of the Septuagint. As 
the circumstances of time, place, etc., which accompanied 
the origin and gradual formation of the Greek Bible, now 
known as the Septuagint, are involved in the greatest ob- 
scurity, it is impossible at the present day to describe the 
manner in which it was looked upon at first by the Jews at 
large. It has indeed been surmised that its first instalment, 
the Greek translation of the Pentateuch, met with consider- 
able opposition on the part of the Jews, who would. have 
seen with regret their holy “ Law ” rendered into a foreign and 
pagan tongue, and that the Letter of Aristeas was composed 
and circulated with a view to secure for the work of the 
Septuagint the credit it really deserved. It has also been 
affirmed that “when the Septuagint translation was com- 
pleted it became at once the Bible of the Greek-speaking 
Jews.” * But, in the complete absence of documents in this 
regard, it is difficult not to consider such statements as little 
more than conjectural. 

Much better grounded on fact is the more cautious posi- 


1 Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel, p. xli. 

* Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, p. 51. CorNeExy, Introd. in S. 
Script., vol. i, p. 332, seems to adopt the same view, when he says: Quamprimum in 
lucem publicam prodiit (Alexandrina Versio), maximo cum plausu ab omnibus Judets 
recepia est. 


276 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


tion generally assumed by scholars, that the Septuagint ob- 
tained a rapid and wide circulation. It was only natural 
that this version should spread without much difficulty 
among the Greek-speaking Jews, who, throughout the West, 
had long felt the need of such a work, and undergone the 
powerful influence of the numerous and wealthy Jewish pop- 
ulation of the great Egyptian capital. Hardly less natural 
was it that even the Jews of Palestine should gradually look 
with favor upon a translation which would bring more easily 
their religion to the notice of many pagans inclined towards 
Judaism, and which could be readily used by Jewish apolo- 
gists in their various treatises to vindicate the laws and wor- 
ship of Yahweh. In point of fact, as early as the middle of 
the second century before Christ the author of the Prologue 
to Ecclesiasticus makes mention of an existing version of 
“the Law, the Prophets, and the rest of the Books,” and 
whose usefulness led him to undertake the translation 
of the work primitively written in Hebrew by his grand- 
father, Jesus. The fabulous details of the Letter of Aristeas 
contributed no doubt to secure popularity to the Greek 
translation of the Pentateuch, and we learn from the cele- 
brated Alexandrian Jew, Philo (born about 20 B.c.), that “ up 
to his time a yearly and solemn festival was celebrated in the 
island of Pharos, to return thanks to God in the very place 
where the Septuagint Version had been made.’’* Philo used 
it in the composition of his various works, and even num- 
bered its authors among the inspired prophets of old. It is 
also beyond question that long before the Christian era it 
was substituted in place of the original Hebrew in the pub- 
lic services of the Greek-speaking Jews dispersed throughout 
the world. Even in Palestine it was probably used in the 
Hellenistic synagogues of Cesarea, and perhaps of Jerusa- 


1 De Vita Moysis, Book ii, § 7. 


ANCIENT GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 277 


lem, and the Jewish priest and historian, Josephus (} about 
100 A.D.) used it freely in his writings.’ 

With the rise of Christianity, the destruction of Jerusalem, 
and the fixing of the Hebrew Canon and Text by the Jewish 
authorities, a new period opened in the history of the Alex- 
andrian Version of the Old Testament. Quoted by the New 
Testament writers, as we already said, used by the early 
Fathers and writers of the Church, looked upon by many as 
no less inspired than the original Hebrew, the Septuagint 
naturally became the Bible to which Christians appealed 
confidently in their controversies against the Jews. ‘Then it 
was that, worsted by arguments derived from their own ver- 
sion, these adversaries of the Christian name began to deny 
that it agreed with the Hebrew Text, ceased to reverence it, 
and finally rejected it, declaring that “the day on which the 
LXX translated ‘ the Law’ was for Israel as doleful as the day 
on which the golden calf was made.”* ‘Then it was also 
that the current Greek Text (the Mowy edocs) already 
somewhat altered by Hellenistic transcribers,* became more 
and more corrupted in the hands of Christian copyists who 
modified it, through ignorance, carelessness, desire to improve 
it, etc., etc.” As the copies multiplied, so did likewise the 
variations between them, with the natural result that, at the 
end of the second century, Christians could not ascertain 
which of.the various readings was the true rendering of the 
Hebrew original, and could not consequently urge any of 


1Cfr. Lotsy, loc. cit., p. 29, sq.3 S. Davipson, A Treatise on Biblical Criticism, 
vol. i, p. 196. 

2 This passage of the Talmud (Sepher Torah, i, 8) is quoted by BuHL, Canon and Text 
of the Old Testament, p. 119 (Engl. Transl.). 

3 Alterations have been pointed out by scholars in the Greek Text of the LXX used 
by Philo (Cfr. Grabe, De vitiis LX X ante Origenis zvum illatis). 

* Some Christians inserted glosses in their own copies. The best-known of these in- 
terpolations is found in Ps. xcv, 10, “ The Lord reigned from the wood‘? (amd Tov EvAov), 
words which St. Justin and other Fathers considered as maliciously suppressed by the 
Jews from the Hebrew. 


278 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


them in controversy against the Jews. ‘This uncertainty of 
the apologists of the Christian faith was also increased by 
the fact that new Greek versions directly made from the 
Hebrew by Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus, differed 
very much at times from the readings of the Aowy exdoors. 

At this juncture, the great biblical scholar of the third 
century, Origen (186-254), came to the rescue of the de- 
fenders of Christianity by supplying them with the means to 
ascertain at a glance the exact relation in which the Sep- 
tuagint translation stood with the Hebrew Text and with the 
other Greek versions of the time.” This he did in his 
gigantic work to which was given the name of the Hexap/a, 
because at the opening of his book, six columns were placed 
before the eyes of the reader. These six columns contained 
respectively: (1) The Hebrew Text in its square letters; (2) 
the same Hebrew Text, but written in Greek letters; (3) the 
Greek Version of Aquila, placed here as being closest in its 
renderings to the Hebrew original; (4) the translation of 
Symmachus ; (5) the Septuagint, as revised by Origen him- 
self ; and finally (6) the Version of Theodotion, which came 
last in the series, because the furthest removed in style from 
the original Hebrew.* The //exaf/a formed an immense 
work, consisting of about fifty bulky volumes, so that it is 
not surprising to find that when it perished, in the seventh 
century, no full transcript had been made of it. . So was it 
also probably with the reduced edition of it, which Origen 
himself had prepared, and which is known under the name 
of the Zetrap/a, because it contained simply the last four 
columns of the Hexap/a. Only one of these columns of the 
flexapla and the Zetrap/a was in fact destined to survive 

1 That this was the chief purpose of the illustrious critic is put beyond question by 
his letter to Africanus, § 17. 

2 In some books, two and even three other Greek versions were added, thus forming 


what have been called the OcrAarpLaA and ENNEAPLA. The authors of these translations 
are unknown; they are usually simply called the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh versions. 


ANCIENT GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 279 


entire, and naturally enough it was that which exhibited the 
text of the Septuagint. As mentioned above, this was not 
the text of the Kowy &xdoors, but such a revision of it as 
would allow Christian apologists to realize at a glance its 
exact relation with the other Greek versions and especially 
with the original Hebrew. For this purpose Origen em- 
ployed the critical signs of the grammarians of his time, 
marking (1) with an oée/us (—) the passages which occurred 
in the Septuagint and were not found in the Hebrew; (2) 
with an asterisk (Mor +) the passages which were in the 
Hebrew and which he had inserted into the Septuagint from 
another Greek translation, most frequently from that of 
Theodotion ;* and (3) with a metobelus (.¢) the end of each 
difference noticed or alteration introduced.* The Hexaplar 
Text of the Septuagint, so called from its having been framed 
by Origen for his Hexap/a, was therefore, practically, that 
of the old Greek Version made to correspond as closely as 
possible with the Hebrew Text of the time, and consequently 
one most valuable in the eyes of his contemporaries in their 
discussions with the Jews. 

While the Hexaplar Text was copied and circulated in 
Palestine by the efforts of Pamphilus and Eusebius of 
Ceesarea, the common text of the Septuagint (the Aowy éxdoars) 
was subjected to two new revisions. ‘The one was carried 
out by the presbyter Lucian (} 311), a leader of the An- 
tiochian school, who with the help of the versions of Aquila, 
Symmachus and Theodotion, and chiefly by means of the 
Hebrew, succeeded in bringing forth a recension, which 

1 Origen marked by the initial letters of the names of the translators, the particular 
Greek versions from which he borrowed the expressions which he inserted into the Sep- 
tuagint Text. It seems that at times he made alterations in the LXX, without any 
remark (cfr. Frze_p, Prolegomena, chap. vii § 4). 

2 As might be expected, copyists soon exchanged the critical marks of Origen one for 
another, or omitted them altogether, etc.; later, all appeared in many MSS. of the 


‘LXX, written without critical marks, as if all belonged to the primitive Septuagint 
Text. 


-280 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


many consider as remarkable for its closeness to the original.’ 
Others, on the contrary, think that ‘ the most marked char- 
acteristic of this edition was Lucian’s habit, when he found 
different words or phrases in different copies to combine 
them into a composite phrase, and so to preserve both.” ° 
But in our present imperfect knowledge of what concerns 
the recension of Lucian, it can hardly be said that either of 
the positions just mentioned rests on truly sufficient grounds.’ 
According to St. Jerome,’ this recension bore the name of 
Aovztavos or Kowy, and was adopted in the churches of 
Syria and Constantinople. 

Of the second recension of the old Septuagint Text less 
still is known to us. It was made by Hesychius, who is 
usually identified with the Egyptian bishop of that name, 
who, like Lucian, suffered martyrdom in 311, during the 
persecution of Maximus. It was circulated in Alexandria 
and Egypt, and is supposed by some recent scholars to 
have been a revision of the Aor, made after the same method 
as that of Lucian, anc on a Septuagint Text which differed 
considerably from the one used in Antioch and in Cesarea.° 

After the beginning of the fourth century the Septuagint 
Version, as far as we know, did not undergo any important 
revision in the Greek churches. In one form or another, 
and gradually becoming corrupted in all by the mistakes of 
transcribers, or by their intentional mixture of the revised 
texts, it continued to be, as it is down to the present day, 
the Old Testament of the Greek or Eastern Church. ‘he 
principal MSS. in which it has come down to us are, among 
the Uncials, the Szwazticus (x); the Vaticanus (B); the 


1 Cfr. CHauvin, Lecons d’Introduction Générale, p. 299, sq. 

2 KENYON, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, p. 57. 

8 Cfr. Bunt, Canon and Text of the Old Testament, §§ 44, 46. 

4 Epist. ad Sunniam et Fretelam (Epist. 106); Apologia adv. Lib. Rufini, Book ii, 
§ 27. , 


5 CHAvvIN, ibid., p. 301 ; cfr. BUHL, p. 132 (Engl. Transl.). 


ANCIENT GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, 281 


Alexandrinus (A); and the palimpsest Codex Ephremi, al- 
ready described in connection with the transmission of the 
Greek New Testament, and containing the books of both 
Testaments; the Sarravianus (G) of the fifth century, now 
at Leyden, and comprising the Pentateuch, with portions of 
Josue and Judges in the Hexaplar Text with Origen’s aster- 
isks and obeli; and a few other fragmentary codices of 
special value because either exhibiting the Hexaplar Text 
with its critical marks, or (like the Codex Marchalianus (Q) 
of the Vatican Library) containing the Egyptian Text of 
Hesychius.*. The cursive MSS. of the Septuagint are over 
300 in number, and are all more or less fragmentary, 63 of 
them containing the Pentateuch or part of it; 55 containing 
the historical books; 128 the book of Psalms, etc. ‘The 
value of the cursives only appears when they can be divided 
into groups, showing common descent from one or other 
of the ancient editions of the Septuagint which have been 
described above.” * 

The history of the printed text of the Septuagint Version 
begins with the sixteenth century, when the celebrated 
Cardinal XiMENES published it for the first time in what 
is known as the Complutensian Polyglot (1514-1517). His 
Greek Text was mainly based on two late cursive MSS. of 
the Vatican library, and it represents chiefly the recension of 
Lucian.’ It has been reproduced in the great Polyglots of 
Antwerp and Paris, and more recently in the Po/yglotten- Bibel 
of Stier and Theile. Very soon after the Complutensian 
Polyglot was completed, a great printer of Venice, named 
Aldus MANUuTIUS, gave an edition of the LXX, based on 
codices then found in that city. It was followed some 
seventy years later (in 1587) by the much more important 


1 For details, see KENyon, ibid, p. 59, sqq. 

2 Kenyon, ibid, p. 67. 

® Lotsy, Histoire Critique du Texte et des Versions de la Bible, in ]’Enseignement 
Biblique, January, 1893, p. 66. 


282 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


edition which appeared in Rome under the auspices of Pope 
Sixtus V, and which still remains the “ Textus Receptus ” 
of the Septuagint translation. This standard text was 
framed by the best English, Italian, French, and Spanish 
scholars of the time,’ by means of the Vaticanus, the Vene- 
tus Bessarionis (an uncial of the eighth or ninth century), 
one MS. belonging to Card. Carafa, and other codices of 
the Medici Library in Florence. The Roman edition does 
not give unaltered the text of the Codex Vaticanus,’ but is 
chiefly based on it. It has been often reproduced, notably in 
the Polyglot of WaLTon (1657) with various readings from the 
Alexandrinus MS., and in the large HoLMEs-Parsons edition 
(1798-1827), a valuable, though not always reliable, store- 
house of the variations presented by MSS., ecclesiastical 
writers, versions, etc. In 1707-1728 GRraBE, an Anglo- 
Prussian scholar, published in Oxford an excellent edition 
of the Codex Alexandrinus, supplemented from other MSS. 
where A is deficient, together with the various readings of 
the Roman edition and three MSS. ‘Of later editors it is 
only necessary to mention TISCHENDORF, who, in 1850, issued 
a revision of the Roman Text, with variants from &, A and 
C (seventh edition in 1887, by Dr. Nestle); FreLp, who 
edited the remains of the /exapla in 1875; LaGaRDE, 
who in 1883 published an attempt to recover the edition 
of Lucian, besides many other valuable contributions to the 
criticism of the Septuagint; and Dr. Swetr, of Cambridge, 
who has just completed (1887-1894) an edition giving the 
text of the Septuagint according to the best MS. extant in 
each part (B, wherever it is available, elsewhere & or A), 
with all the variants in three or four of the next best manu- 


1 The best-known among them, are beside the Card. President Carafa, Peter Morinus, 
Emmanuel Sa, Flaminius Nobilius, Bellarmin, Valverde, W. Allen, etc. 

2“ Tt has been estimated that the Roman Text differs from that of B in over ,,ooc 
places’ (KENyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, p. 67, footn.). 


ANCIENT GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 283 


scripts. This is likely to remain the standard edition of the 
Septuagint for the use of scholars, until it is superseded by 
the larger Cambridge edition now in preparation, which wil! 
contain the same text with a very much larger apparatus of 
various readings, gathered from a selected number of MSS. 
representing all the different types of text.” ' 


5: Recent Efforts to Recover the Original Text of 
the Septuagint. From the foregoing sketch of the history 
of the LXX, it is clear that the text of the Avwy éxdvars be- 
fore it was revised by Origen, can hardly be recovered at 
the present day. In point of fact, all that biblical scholars 
attempt now to do is to secure a solid basis for further 
critical operations by restoring, as far as that can be done, 
the recensions of Lucian, Hesychius and of Origen himself 
as reproduced by Pamphilus and Eusebius. Their efforts 
in this direction have indeed been crowned with consider- 
able success, for by means of extant MSS., of quotations 
from ecclesiastical writers whose nationality was fully 
known, and also by means of subsequent versions, such as 
the Gothic and chiefly the Syriac translation of the Hexaplar 
Text of the Septuagint, which Bishop Paul of Tella made at 
the beginning of the seventh century,’ these scholars have 
been able to restore toa great extent the text of Lucian, and 
that of Origen as it was published by Eusebius and Pam- 
philus.* But despite the work thus accomplished, numerous 
and apparently insuperable difficulties still remain in the 
way of recovering the Septuagint Text before its revision by 
Origen. There is, first of all, the ignorance of critics regard- 
ing the recension of Hesychius, about whose text they can 


1 F, G, Kenyon, ibid., p. 68. For details, see Lotsy, op. cit., p. 72, sqq- 

2 This translation preserved the critical marks of Origen pretty much as they were 
found in the Hexaplar Text edited by Pamphilus and Eusebius. 

3 For details, see BuHL, Canon and Text of the Old Testament, pp. 137-148 (Engl. 
Transl.). 


284 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


offer yet little more than vague conjectures. Again, even 
in connection with the Lucian recension, there is lack of 
agreement as to the MSS. which should be considered as 
containing it. Many obscurities surround likewise the 
Hexaplar recension, whose critical marks have not come 
down to us without having been often exchanged one for 
another, so that, in many cases, it is next to impossible to 
decide whether they exactly point out the additions or omis- 
sions which Origen had intended to denote after comparing 
the Avy with the Hebrew original. Finally, even supposing 
that the text of these three recensions should be pretty fully 
recovered, considerable uncertainty would still prevail 
regarding the text of the Aumy @zdvars, for time and again, a 
critical comparison between them would not enable scholars 
to determine the exact reading of the eld Avex, in places 
where Origen introduced alterations without any mention 
thereof, or in passages where the Septuagint texts used by 
him and by Lucian and Hesychius contained already dif- 
ferent readings. 

It must be said, however, that many critics do not give up 
all hope to work back of these restored recensions to the 
text of the Avwy exdvctg as it stood before it was revised by 
Origen.’ 


§ 2. Other Ancient Greek Versions of the Old Testament. 


I. Origin and Leading Features of the Versions 
of Aquila, Theodotion and Symmachus. While the 
Septuagint translation has survived down to the present day 
under the patronage of the Christian Church, the Greek 
versions originated in Jewish circles during the second cen- 
tury of our era with a view to supplant that translation, have 


1 Cfr. BUHL, loc. cit., p. 148, sq. ; and Lorsy, op. cit., p. 79, sqq. 


ANCIENT GREEK VERSIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 285 


almost entirely disappeared. The first of these versions 
was the work of Aquita, spoken of by St. Irenaeus, as a 
Jewish proselyte of Synope, in Pontus, and now considered 
by many as identical with Onkelos, the author of the prin- 
cipal Targum on the Pentateuch. St. Jerome speaks of 
him as a disciple of Rabbi Agqiba,* and there is no doubt 
that Aquila’s translation was made with the same attention 
to the most minute details of the Hebrew original, as had 
been inculcated upon his scholars by R. Aqiba. As Aquila 
intended to supply the Greek-speaking Jews with a version 
which would be an exact counterpart of the Hebrew Text, 
as it had been recently settled, he réndered the original in 
the most literal way, not even neglecting the particle px, the 
mere sign of the direct object of a transitive verb, not recoil- 
ing from barbarisms and solecisms, etc. His work appeared 
somewhat about 130-140, and was very favorably received 
by the Jews, to whom it proved all the more serviceable in 
their controversies with the early Christians, because, under 
its appearance of strict literalism, it seems to have been at 
times biased in its renderings by dogmatic prejudice.® 

Later in the same century—how much later, cannot now 
be determined—appeared a second Greek Version whose 
author was the Jewish proselyte, THEODOTION, and whose 
origin was possibly due to the unwillingness of many Greek- 
speaking Jews to give up the old Septuagint Text with 
which they had been so long familiar, to the full extent of 
the extreme departures from it noticeable in the translation 
of Aquila. “The work of Theodotion is indeed to be 
regarded as a sort of comprehensive revision of the LXX, 
to which it also attaches itself by this, that it retains the 


1St. IRENaus, Against Heresies, Book iii, chap. xxi. 

2 Comm. in Isaiam, on chap. viii, 11, sqq. 

3 For further information, see CHAuvin, Lecons d’[ntroduction Générale, p. 314, sqq.3 
CorneELy, Historica et Critica Introductio in U. T. Libros Sacros, vol. i, p. 333, sq. 


286 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


apocryphal (i.e., deutero-canonical) additions to Daniel and 
the postscript to Job. It is characteristic of his method that 
not rarely ‘Theodotion receives into his translation the 
Hebrew word unchanged.” ' As might naturally be ex- 
pected, this translation never found much favor with the 
Jews at large, to whom it appeared little different from the 
old Septuagint Text, whereas it was well received by the 
Christians, who rejoiced to find therein a means to improve 
the Kowy gxdvors. Origen made use of it, as was already 
said, as a companion to his Septuagint column ; St. Irenzus 
made use of its text of Daniel, which afterwards altogether 
supplanted in the Church the older translation of that 
prophet, and “the possibly even older custom of interpolat- 
ing the LXX with passages from Theodotion, was carried 
out systematically by Origen (see, e.g., Jerem. xxxill, 14—26), 
and thereby contributed still more to the mixing up of it 
with the Alexandrine translation.” ° 

The third and last Greek translator of the second cen- 
tury ® was the Ebionite Jewish Christian, SymMMacuus, whose 
literary ability is stamped upon his work. Equally a master 
of Hebrew and Greek, he rendered the Hebrew phrases of 
the original into good and idiomatic Greek. He was, in- 
deed, a model of the elegant and faithful translator, and 
hence it is not to be wondered at that St. Jerome admired 
greatly his work, and made large use of it in his preparation 
of the Latin Vulgate. As the version of Symmachus was 
not very closely made from the original—at times, in fact, 
it is quite paraphrastic—it never was very popular among 
the Jews. 


1 Bunt, Canon and Text of the Old Testament, p. 154 (Engl. Transl.). 

2 Buu, ibid, p. 155. 

3 The exact date at which the Version of Symmachus appeared is unknown. It was 
probably made in the last years of the second century; F. G. Kenyon says ‘‘about the 
year 200.”’ 


SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER XIII. 


CHE SYRIAC AND Coptic VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE. 





1. Of the Old Testament: The Peshitto (name, origin 
and leading features). 


rE [ Tatian’s Diatessaron (ab. 172 A.D.). 


THE SYRIAC POLS Noe | The Peshitto. 








VERSIONS: | Testament: | /he Curetonian Syriac. 
The Sinaitic Palimpsest discovered 
by Mrs. Lewis. 
1. Number and date. 
II 2. Versions of the Old Testament : especially service 


able for the critical study of the LXX Text. 
TPHE Coptic 





3. Versions of f{ 
; | Text contained in them. 
VERSIONS: PIE NT A er 
Their manifold importance. 
Testament: | 
TEE j : 
The Ethiopic, Armenian and Gothic versions. 
APPENDIX : 


287 


CHAPTER XIII. 
THE SYRIAC AND COPTIC VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE. 


§ 1. Zhe Syriac Versions. 


1. The Syriac Translations of the Old Testa- 
ment. Of the Eastern translations of the Old Testament 
none ranks higher in respect of antiquity and importance, after 
the Septuagint, than the Syriac Version, which is commonly 
called the Peshitto ((Afsmo , Semple). ‘This name, which 
is found first in Syriac MSS. ofthe ninth century, has been 
understood in various ways. According to some, it denotes 
the Ziteral and faithful character of the oldest Syriac Version ; 
according to others, it designates its great currency, and is 
practically equivalent to Aww, Vulgata. More probably, it 
has a direct reference to the contrast which exists between 
this old version, and the one made by Paul of Tella, in the 
beginning of the seventh century : for while the latter renders 
the Septuagint Text of the Hexap/a and contains its critical 
additions and marks over and above what is found in the 
original Hebrew, the former was directly made from manu- 
scripts called é24a (simple) because simply containing the 
Hebrew Text, and was itself named “ Simple” on that 
account.’ 

But whatever may be thought of the various explanations 
given of the word Peshitto, there is hardly any doubt that the 
version of the Old Testament thus designated, goes back to 
a very remote antiquity. It was certainly in existence in the 


1 Cfr. Buni, Canon and Text of the Old Testament, p. 185; CHaAuvin, Lecons d’In- 
troduction Générale, p. 385; Rubens Duvat, La Littérature Syriaque, p.35. KEN- 
YON (op. cit., p. 74) says: ‘* The explanation of the name is unknown.” 

288 


THE SYRIAC AND COPTIC VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE. 289 


third century of our era, for in the century following, we find 
it quoted and referred to’ as an authority of long standing. 
Several data—among which may be mentioned, first, a refer- 
ence of St. Melito, Bishop of Sardis about 170, to a Syriac 
translation (6 2¥pos), and next, the fact that the Peshitto of 
the New Testament quotes the old Covenant in the words 
of the Peshitto of the Old Testament ’—tend even to prove 
that the oldest Syriac translation goes back to the second 
century after Christ, an inference which is in perfect harmony 
with the very early and flourishing condition of Christianity 
in Mesopotamia. We should bear in mind, however, that 
all the parts of the Peshitto of the Old Testament must not 
be referred to so early a period. The oldest Syriac Version, 
as the oldest Greek Version of the old Covenant, was the 
work of several translators who were not contemporary. 
The parts first translated were naturally those whose need 
was most felt, and these were the Pentateuch, the Prophets 
andthe Psalms. The books of Chronicles, Esdras and Nehe- 
mias and Esther were rendered later on from the Hebrew; 
and later still very likely, the deutero-canonical books or 
parts of books which were rendered from the Greek, with 
the exception of Ecclesiasticus which was directly translated 
from the original Hebrew. In the fourth century, all the 
books of the Old Testament had been rendered into Syriac; 
and to these even some apocryphal works had been added, 
as we see from the quotations made from them by Aphraates 
and St. Ephrem.? 

But while the plurality of the translators is admitted by 
all recent scholars, their nationality and religion are still 


1 The first certain witness that we have for its existence is APHRAATES, in the first 
part of the fourth century. 

2 Cfr. BuHL, and Duvat, loc. cit.; see also ScRivENER, A Plain Introduction to the 
Criticism of the New Testament, vol. ii, p. 7. 

8 Cfr. Duvat, loc. cit., p. 38. The plurality of the translators is witnessed to by St. 
Ephrem (t 373) and James of Edessa (t 708), in their commentaries on the Peshitto. 


re 


290 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


matters of lively discussion. According to some, these trans- 
lators were Jews; according to others, they were Jewish or 
even Greek Christians. This last view is certainly to be 
rejected, for had the Peshitto been the work of Greek trans- 
lators, it can hardly be doubted that they would have ren- 
dered into Syriac not the Hebrew, but the Septuagint Text, 
and that they would not have allowed themselves to be in- 
fluenced by the existing Targums on the Pentateuch, Eze- 
chiel and Chronicles, as we know was the case. from the 
thorough essays of Perles, Cornill and Fraenkel. Nor can it 
be said either, that the Syriac translators were simply Jews, 
for there are passages in the Prophets and in the Psalms, 
whose Christian coloring argues very strongly against such 
view, unless indeed we admit that these comparatively few 
passages were altered later on by Christian hands.’ The 
more probable, and also more common, opinion among 
scholars, is that the Peshitto of the Old Testament is the 
work of Jewish Christians ; for, on the one hand, the Syrian 
Christians ever recognized the Peshitto as their own version 
of the Bible; and on the other hand, Christians converted 
from Judaism would naturally enough avail themselves of 
older Jewish translations, such as were made use of in the 
Peshitto of the Old Testament. Again, in admitting that 
converts from Judaism are the authors of the oldest Syriac 
Version, we have a ready explanation of the dependence 
which existed apparently from the first, between the Peshitto 
and the Septuagint: as Jews, they would naturally select 
the Hebrew Text as the basis of their work; as Christians, 
they would no less naturally turn to the Septuagint, now 
become the Christian Bible, for help in their difficult under- 
taking.” | 

1 Cfr. S. Davipson, A Treatise on Biblical Criticism, vol. i, p. 247. 

2 It must be said, however, that some leading scholars of the day prefer to admit that 


the Peshitto translation was not made with the help of the LXX, but Was revised later by 
means of the Greek Text of Lucian (cfr. DuvAL, loc. cit., p. 39, sqq.). 


THE SYRIAC AND COPTIC VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE. 291 


‘¢ Considered as a translation, the Peshitto, as a whole, 
takes no mean rank. If it does not reach the elevation 
of the LXX in its best parts, it never sinks so low as the 
Alexandrine translation, which may be convincingly proved 
if one, e.g., compares the Syriac Isaias with the Greek. 
Almost everywhere it conveys an intelligible meaning, and 
oftentimes one meets with renderings which rest upon good 
tradition or happy divination. Here and there, its value is 
lessened by confusions between the Hebrew and Aramaic 
dialect, which are surely excusable considering the close re- 
lationship of the two languages. Worse, and more danger- 
ous for inexperienced critics of the text, is the freedom with 
which suffixes and verbal forms are sometimes interchanged. 
In addition to this, there is the circumstance, already ad- 
verted to, and whereby the importance of the Peshitto for 
Textual Criticism is very seriously depreciated, namely, its 
dependence upon the LXX. Where the Syriac and Greek 
versions agree against the Massoretic Text, we can seldom 
be sure whether the Syrian witness is only an unimportant 
reduplication of that of the LXX, or whether the original 
text on which the Syriac was based had actually so read. 
While the Peshitto is otherwise thoroughly distinguished 
from the T'argums by its literalness and close adherence to 
the original, an exception in this respect is found in the 
translation of the books of Chronicles.” ’ 


2. The Syriac Versions of the New Testament. 
However difficult and well-nigh insoluble may appear the 
problems connected with the Peshitto of the Old Testament, 
it must be said that the questions which concern the Syriac 
versions of the New Testament appear still more complex 


1 Buut, Canon and Text of the Old Testament, pp. 190-191 (Engl. ‘I'ransl.). About 
the Philoxentan Version of the Old Testament, made in the beginning of the sixth 
century, and the Syro-Hexaplar of Paul of Tella, already referred to, see DuvALt, loc. 
cit., p. 64,sq. 


292 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


and farther removed from a satisfactory solution. We shall 
therefore speak very briefly of these versions, and point 
out rather than discuss the ditficult problems connected with 
them. 

Among the oldest Syriac translations of the New Testa- 
ment, biblical scholars at large reckon the Harmony of our 
four Gospels, framed by ‘Tatian, a disciple of St. Justin, and 
generally referred to under its Greek name of Deatessaron 
(Td dca tecodpwy Edayyéheov).* It is true that some contem- 
porary scholars maintain that Tatian composed his Harmony 
in Greek ; but this view, which is exclusively based on the 
fact that ancient writers quote it under the Greek name just 
mentioned, can hardly be considered as probable. ‘Tatian 
was a native of Mesopotamia, who lived in the second part 
of the second century, and who, according to St. Epiphanius, 
framed his Harmony of the Gospels after his return from 
Rome. From this, it is only natural to infer that he com- 
posed his work for the use of the Mesopotamian churches, 
and consequently in Syriac. In point of fact, scholars admit 
generally that Tatian’s Diatessaron was written in that 
language, at Edessa, about 172 a.p. Whether it was com- 
piled from an earlier Syriac Version of the individual Gos- 
pels, or directly from Greek MSS. of the New Testament, 
is a further question much debated, and to which we will 
soon have to refer again. 

The Diatessaron of Tatian was much spread in the Syrian 
Church, until Rabbula, Bishop of Edessa (f+ 435), and 
Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus (f ab. 458) forbade its use in 
their dioceses. Henceforward, Syrian copies of the sepa- 
rate Gospels were used in its stead in the public services, 
and this soon entailed the loss of the original text of the 
Diatessaron. Some twelve years ago, Father Ciasca pub- 


1 Syrian authors give it also the name of the Gosfe/ of the united (books) 2{\Lisr 3 
ahve y in opposition to the individual or separate Gospels. 


THE SYRIAC AND COPTIC VERSIONS OF TH# BIBLE. 293 


lished in Rome an Arabic Version of this important work, 
and it is to be hoped that a thorough study of the Arabic 
Text will enable scholars to determine the precise relation in 
which Tatian’s Diatessaron stands to the other Syriac trans- 
rations of the Gospels. 

The second Syriac Version to be mentioned here is no 
other than the Peshitto of the New Testament, the great 
standard translation of the Syrian churches, down to the 
present day. Its text, which is known to us through a large 
number of manuscripts,’ was certainly settled by the middle 
of the fifth century, for there is no great textual difference 
between the copies of it which have been used by the several 
hostile sects formed at that time or developed later in the 
bosom of the Syrian Church.’ It is likewise certain that 
the Peshitto of the New Testament, as we now possess it, or 
at least in a form akin to it, was in general use early in the 
fourth century, for this is clearly proved by the quotations 
of Holy Writ which are found in the works of Aphraates (he 
wrote about 340), and especially of St. Ephrem (f 373). 
It is even generally granted that since it enjoyed such cur- 
rency in the fourth century, the Peshitto must have been 
made as early as the third century. But here stops the 
agreement between biblical scholars. While many among 
them (such as Westcott and Hort, Bickell, Kenyon, Duval, 
etc.), look upon the Peshitto as a third century revision of 
an older Syriac Version, the others regard it as the prim- 
itive Syriac translation, made with a view to supply the 
earliest Christian churches of Mesopotamia with a vernac- 
ular translation of the New Testament, and they conse- 


1 The total hitherto recorded of the Peshitto MSS. is 177, two of which go back to 
the fifth century, and at least a dozen more to the sixth century. 

2 “The same translation of Holy Scripture is read alike in the public assemblies of the 
Nestorians among the fastnesses of Koordistan, of the Monophysites, who are scattered 
over the plains of Syria, of the Christians of St. Thomas along the coast of Malabar, 
and of the Maronites on the mountain-terraces of Lebanon... . ”’ (SCRIVENER, loc. cit., 
vol. ii., p. 7, sq.) 


294 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


quently ascribe it to the second century after Christ. We 
shall leave aside for the moment this difficult question, for 
it can be understood only after details have been given about 
the other Syriac versions with which the Peshitto is to be 
compared in respect of antiquity, and we shall at once 
describe briefly the leading features of its text. 

The primitive Peshitto of the New Testament comprised 
the four Gospels, the Acts immediately followed by I Peter, 
I John, and the Epistle of St. James; lastly came the 
Epistles of St. Paul. The other canonical books, viz., II 
Peter, II and III John, St. Jude and the Apocalypse, had 
not been translated, probably because doubts still prevailed 
regarding their apostolical origin; in which case their 
absence from the primitive text of the Peshitto is a strong 
argument in favor of the great antiquity of that version.’ 

The author of the Peshitto is, of course, unknown ; but 
there is no doubt, that if we take his work to be the oldest 
Syriac translation of the New Testament, we must admit 
that he was himself acquainted with the Jewish literature, 
and was most likely a Jewish convert.* In the Peshitto, as 
indeed in the other versions which can lay claim to be the 
oldest Syriac translation of the New Testament, the Greek 
guiazty pra (Matt. xxiii, 5) is rendered by the word #pri, 
which is plainly identical with the tephillin of the Jews. 
The Peshitto translates the expression ca8Pdrov 6063 (Acts 1, 
12) by “seven stadia,” whereby it is clear that the translator 
knew the exact distance which is meant by the thoroughly 
Jewish expression, “a Sabbath-day’s journey.” Again, the 
word “FAdyves, when used to denote the heathen, is rendered 
into Syriac by “the Aramzans,” i.e., by the precise name 
under which the Jews designated the heathen in the East.’ 


1 Luke xxii, 17, 18, and I John v, 7 were likewise absent from the original Peshitto. 

2 Tf the Peshitto is only a revision of an older Syriac Version, then it is the author of 
this older translation who is to be very likely considered as a Jewish convert. 

3 Duvat, La Littérature Syriaque, p. 49, sq. 


THE SYRIAC AND COPTIC VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE. 295 


Long, indeed, the accurate, scholarly and smooth text of 
the Peshitto had been considered by all scholars as the 
primitive translation of the Syrian Church, when, in the 
middle of the nineteenth century, a rival text was discovered, 
for which its learned editor, Dr. Cureton,’ one of the officers 
of the British Museum, did not hesitate to claim this glorious 
privilege. Among the many and valuable Syriac MSS. 
which reached England in 1842, from the Nitrian convent 
in Egypt, there were some eighty leaves of a copy of the 
Gospels, which Cureton recognized as belonging to a MS. 
of the fifth century, and which he published in 1858, under 
the title of “ Remains of a Very Ancient Recension of the 
Four Gospels in Syriac.” In his Preface, the learned editor 
contended, among other things, that the text recently dis- 
covered was that of a version made before the Peshitto ever 
existed, and that this latter version was a revision of the 
old Syriac, just as the Latin Vulgate was in part a revision 
of the old Latin. 

It was only natural that such a novel opinion should be 
challenged, and in fact, a hot controversy still rages around 
it. As there is an undeniable and close relation between 
the more accurate text of the Peshitto, and the less satis- 
factory Curetonian text, the whole question is whether the 
Curetonian is a corruption of the Peshitto, or the Peshitto 
an improved revision of the Curetonian. ‘Those who main- 
tain that the Curetonian is the older text appeal chiefly to 
the following arguments: (1) the more polished, accurate, 
faithful and grammatical of the two versions—and the 
Peshitto richly deserves all this praise—is more likely to 
have been produced by a careful and gradual revision of one 
much its inferior in these respects, than the worse (viz., the 
Curetonian) to have originated in the mere corruption of 
the other ; (2) the quotations found in Aphraates more nearly 


1 Hence the name of the Curetonian Syriac, which it bears. 


296 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


resemble the Curetonian Text; (3) in the text of the 
Peshitto there are clear marks of emendation, of the improv- 
ing touch of a later hand; (4) finally, “the affinities of the 
Curetonian Version are with the older forms of the Greek 
Text (B, 8 and D), while those of the Peshitto are with its 
later forms ” (A or C).’ 

Nothing daunted by these apparently unanswerable argu- 
ments, scholars who contend for the greater antiquity of the 
Peshitto meet them with considerable success, and show 
well in particular how the Curetonian Text bears marks of 
alteration and corruption.” Next, they. call our attention to 
the fact that since the Peshitto has been received for cen- 
turies by the various Syrian communities, and has ever been 
believed by them to date back to the earliest times, its 
antiquity should not be rejected through mere conjecture, or 
because of a single copy of another version, whose past is 
utterly unknown, and which may contain readings accepted 
only in one district, or due to individual editors. 

Perhaps the partisans of either opinion would have ceased 
arguing some time since, had not the recent discovery of 
a Syriac palimpsest of the Gospels rendered the question 
more intricate and added fuel to the old controversy. The 
discovery was made in 1892, by Mrs. Lewis of Cambridge 
(England), during her visit to the Monastery of St. Catherine, 
on Mount Sinai, the very place where Tischendorf found, in 
1859, the old Greek copy of the Bible, to which he gave the 
name of the Codex Sinaiticus (x). The photographs of 
the palimpsest, taken by Mrs. Lewis, were carefully examined 
upon her return by two Cambridge Orientalists, Mr. Burkitt 
and Prof. Bensly. ‘The Syriac Text contained about three- 
fourths (the rest being undecipherable, or altogether lost) of 
the four Gospels, and was published in 1894, under the title of 


.1 Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient MSS., p. 153, sq. 
2 For details, see SCRIVENER, vol. ii, p. 18, sqq., and the works he refers to, 


THE SYRIAC AND COPTIC VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE. 297 


“The Four Gospels in Syriac transcribed from the Sinaitic 
Palimpsest.”* The learned editors had supposed at first 
that the newly-discovered text belonged to the same old 
Syriac Version as the Curetonian fragments. But a careful 
study of the palimpsest has proved beyond doubt that the 
Sinaitic MS. does not represent precisely the same text 
as the Curetonian Syriac, for the differences between them 
are much greater than, for instance, between any two 
ancient MSS. of the Peshitto or even of the Greek New 
Testament.” It has proved also that the two texts are 
not independent of each other, and this has naturally led 
scholars to inquire into their exact relation. About this 
difficult question experts still differ. Some, among whom 
Carl Hoz.ey of Munich, and F. G. Kenyon of the British 
Museum, consider the Sinaitic Text as a form earlier than 
the Curetonian, whereas so prominent a Syriac scholar as 
Kubens Duvat of the College of France, thinks that the 
Curetonian, Text™s the ‘éarlier edition of thé ‘separate ”’ 
Gospels, and that the Sinaitic is but a revision of it. The 
same scholars are also at variance when there is question 
of determining the precise relation between these two texts, 
and those of the Peshitto and of the Diatessaron of Tatian. 
As regards antiquity, the respective order of these texts is, 
according to Mr. Hozley: (1) the Sinaitic; (2) the Diates- 
saron; (3) the Curetonian ; (4) the Peshitto. According to 
Fr. Duval, on the contrary, the Diatessaron and the Cure- 
tonian Text are practically contemporary editions, the one 
Of thee combined, manamtiic other? of “the “separate”? 
Gospels, while the Sinaitic palimpsest contains a revision of 


1JIn 1896 Mrs. I.ewis published, under the title of “Some Pages of the Four 
Gospels,’ other passages which she had discovered in a subsequent visit to Mount 
Sinai. 

2 Among other differences, we may mention here the absence from the Sinaitic MSS. 
of the last twelve verses of St. “fark, which are found in the Curetonian Text. 


298 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO TIIE HOLY SCRIPTURES, 


the Curetonian made with the help of the Diatessaron, and 
the Peshitto a later recension of the Sinaitic.’ 

From the foregoing short account of the positions as- 
sumed by the leading Syriac scholars of the day, it is plain 
that the recent discoveries tend to disprove rather than to 
confirm the old view, which considered the Peshitto as the 
earliest Syriac translation of the New Testament. 

For what concerns the two revisions of the Peshitto, 
which were made, the one in the beginning of the sixth; and 
the other in the first quarter of the seventh, century, and 
which are respectively known as the PA/loxenian and the 
Hlarkleian, from their authors, the Bishops of Mabbug (in 
Eastern Syria), Philoxenus and Thomas of Harkel, the student 
is referred to F. H. SCRIVENER, vol. li, p. 25, Ssqq. 


§ 2. The Coptic Versions.” 


1. Their Number and Date. The number of the Coptic 
versions of the Bible is naturally connected with that of the 
leading Coptic dialects which were in use at the time when 
these versions originated. It was formerly supposed that 
only three such dialects, viz., the Bohairic (from Bohairah, 
the Arabic name of Lower Egypt), the SaAzfic (from Ls Said, 
the Arabic name of Upper Egypt), and the Aayoumic (thus 
called from a fertile district of that name, west of the Nile, 
from which it is separated by a narrow strip of desert), 
should be recognized.3 But very recent discoveries* have 


1 Cfr. R. DuvAL, La Littérature Syriaque, p. 52, sqq., fora concise discussion of this 
question. 

2 Coptic isa language derived from the ancient Egyptian, through an admixture of 
Greek words and forms. Its name is not improbably a corrupted form of the word 
aiyvmt.os, represented in Coptic by TYIITIO’ Its alphabet contains thirty let- 
ters, twenty-four of which are taken from the Greek alphabet, while the other six are 
borrowed from the Egyptian demotic writing, and modified so as to be in harmony with 
the Greek forms used for Coptic writing. 

3’ The names adopted here for these three Coptic dialects are those now more com- 
monly received among Coptic scholars. 

+ For a summary of them see SCRIVENER, loc. cit., p. 103, sqq. 


THE SYRIAC AND COPTIC VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE. 299 


proved that two other distinct dialects should be admitted, 
viz., the Middle Egyptian, and the Akhmimic (from the 
ancient town of Akhmim, in Upper Egypt). This therefore 
raises the number of the Coptic or Egyptian translations from 
three to five. It must be said, however, that the extant 
fragments of a version in the Jddle Egyptian present 
a text which has been influenced to such an extent by the 
Fayoumic Version, that it is better to treat them as contain- 
ing practically the same text, until further discoveries enable 
Coptic scholars to draw a more accurate distinction between 
the respective readings of these two translations. 

Of course the exact date at which these various versions 
originated is unknown. But it is highly probable that some 
of them, if not all, were made for the use of the numerous 
Christian communities which were founded in Egypt at a 
very early date, and which freely developed until the last 
decade of the second century. ‘The existence and universal 
use of vernacular translations in Egypt throughout the third 
century is a fact which all scholars, even those among them 
who are least favorable to Christianity, readily admit,’ and 
which, by implication, proves that Coptic versions must 
have been made as early as the second century. 


2. Coptic Versions of the Old Testament. The two 
more important versions of the Old Testament are (1) the 
Bohairic, current in Lower, or Northern, Egypt; and (2) the 
Sahidic, current in Upper, or Southern, Egypt. The former 
of these has alone come down to us in its entirety, apparently 
because, since the eleventh or twelfth century, it was the one 
adopted as the standard text for all Egypt; but the latter, 
which most likely before the eleventh century had been sub- 
stituted in the place of the other translations (viz., the 

1 For details, see SCRIVENER loc. cit., p. 97, sqq.; IfvvERNAT, art. Coptes (Versions, 


de la Bible, in Vicouroux’ Dictionnaire de Ja Bible, col. 944, sqq., and CorNELY, Intro- 
ductio, vol i, p. 374, sq. 


300 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Fayoumic, the Akhmimic and the Middle Egyptian), exists 
still in very considerable fragments. On the other hand, if, 
as scholars seem inclined to admit, the Akhmimic was the 
earliest dialect of the Coptic language, it is clear that a 
special importance should be attached to the few fragments 
of the Akhmimic translation, which were discovered some 
fifteen years ago.’ 

The Coptic translations of the Old Testament were no 
doubt made from the Septuagint, and, in consequence, their 
readings are directly available for the purpose of restoring 
the Greek Text, and only indirectly for ascertaining the 
Hebrew Text which lies behind the Septuagint. It is not 
improbable, however, that when these various versions were 
made, the old Septuagint Text of Daniel had already been 
replaced in the official text of the Christian Church by the 
translation of Theodotion, so that the Coptic versions of 
that prophet represent, down to the present day, not the old 
Kow7, but the version of Theodotion. The other books were 
naturally translated from the old Septuagint edition then 
current in Egypt, and would therefore be especially service- 
able in recovering its text had not the Coptic versions been 
subsequently altered to bring them into harmony with the 
Septuagint Text framed by Origen for his Hexapla. In 
this connection, the Sahidie copies of the book of Job, which 
were recently discovered, and to which reference was made 
in some preceding chapters, are of particular interest. They 
contain a text by about one-sixth shorter than the “ Textus 
Receptus ” Greek or Hebrew of the Old Testament, and 
therefore embody none, or at least but a few, of the addi- 
tions made by Origen for his Hexaplar edition of the Sep- 
tuagint. They consequently make us regret that the other 
books of this same version should have been subsequently 


1 See, however, the remarks to the contrary, by A.C. HEADLAM, in ScRIVENER’s, A 
Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, vol. ii, p.126, sq. 


THE SYRIAC AND COPTIC VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE. 301 


revised from MSS. containing Origen’s additions, and at the 
same time they lead us to hope that among the many MSS. 
and papyri which are being discovered in Egypt, copies of 
other books belonging to this or to other Coptic versions may 
likewise be found free from the Hexaplar interpolations. ' 


3. Coptic Versions of the New Testament. As 
in connection with the Old Testament, the two Coptic ver- 
sions of greater importance for the study of the New Testa- 
ment are the Bohazric, which alone is extant in its entirety, 
and the Safzdic, which exists in a very large number of frag- 
ments. In these two, probably the oldest, versions of the 
New Testament, it does not seem that the Apocalypse was 
originally included, and it will be remembered that in the 
third century the canonical character of that book was ques- 
tioned in Egypt. Of the two versions, the Bohairic is — 
deemed better, both as regards the style of the translation 
and as regards the text rendered into Coptic. The trans- 
lation of the former is “ generally good and careful, so that 
it is easy to see what was the Greek which the translator 
had before him in any particular passage; . . . that of the 
Sahidic is generally Jess faithful, and its language is rougher 
and less polished.” ‘ The text, too, of the Bohairic is of 
an excellent type. Excluding passages which appear only 
in the later MSS., and which evidently were not in the orig- 
inal version, the Bohairic Text is mainly of a neutral or 
Alexandrian type, with no mixture of Western readings and 
little or nothing of Syrian. The doubt about the last twelve 
verses of St. Mark appears in the best MS., which gives a 
shorter alternative ending in the margin; otherwise all the 
Bohairic MSS. have the usual verses, g-20. The passage 
John vii, 53-vili, 11, is omitted by all the best MSS.” 


1 Cfr.the conclusions of C1rasca, summed up by HyveERNAT, in ViGouRoux’ Dict. 
de la Bible, col. 948. 


302 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


On the other hand, the text of the Sahidic “is less pure, in- 
cluding a considerable Western element, so that it must 
have been translated independently from the Greek and 
from MSS. belonging to the Western family. Thus it is 
reckoned by Dr. Hort as a not unfrequent ally of the chief 
representatives of that form of the text, the Codex Bezze 
(D), and the old Latin and old Syriac versions.” ' 

Of the other Coptic versions of the New Testament little 
can be said, for only a few fragments of them have hitherto 
been discovered or published. From these it is simply in- 
ferred (1), that the Akhmimic is not a primitive version 
from which the Bohairic and the Sahidic would be derived, 
and (2), that the Fayoumic and the Middle Egyptian trans- 
lations form a distinct group by themselves. 

It is much to be regretted that no truly critical edition 
of the Bohairic and Sahidic versions of the New Testament 
has as yet appeared. The great textual importance of the 
former is evident. It was made from Greek copies, older and 
apparently purer than any that have come down to us, and 
the closeness of its renderings could hardly be greater, both 
because the Coptic language contains a large admixture of 
Greek and because the translator did not hesitate simply to 
embody in his work a large number of words found in the 
original before him. In this respect the Sahidic Version is 
also of considerable, though of less, importance. It does 
not seem to represent either as old or as pure a text as the 
Bohairic; but its text bears a valuable testimony to the 
early alterations undergone by the Greek New Testament, 
and indeed points out the general line on which this grad- 
ual deformation went on. As regards the history of the 
Canon of the New Testament, both versions witness to the 
fact that at the time they were made considerable doubts 


1¥.G. Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, p. 161, sqq. For more 
details, see Hyvernart, loc. cit. : 


THE SYRIAC AND COPTIC VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE. 3°3 


prevailed concerning the canonical character of the A’poca- 
lypse. Indeed there is a general feeling among biblical 
scholars that the more the various Coptic versions are 
studied the greater their importance will appear. 


§ 3. The Ethiopic, Armenian and Gothic Versions. 


The other Eastern translations of Holy Writ, whose read- 
ings are often quoted by Textual Critics, are the Lzhzopic, the 
Armenian, and the Gothic versions. We shall therefore 
briefly state what is commonly admitted about them. 

I. The origin of the £7¢/zopfic Version of the Bible is very 
obscure; but, as granted by all scholars, it was made later 
than either the Syriac or the'Coptic translations. In fact, 
the earliest date to which it can be referred is about the 
middle of the fourth century, some time after Abba SALAMA 
(better known under the name of St. Frumentius) had carried 
the Gospel into Abyssinia. Most scholars, however, prefer 
to ascribe it to the end of the fifth century, when the Ethi- 
opic Church was fully organized.’ 

The Ethiopic Version of the Old Testament was no are 
made from the Septuagint; but as its extant MSS. are of 
very late date, and have not yet been fully examined, it may 
still be questioned whether these MSS. represent the primi- 
tive Ethiopic translation, or a much later one, which ap- 
peared in the fourteenth century from the Arabic or Coptic.’ 
The Ethiopic Version of the New Testament was made di- 
rectly from the Greek, and, as that of the Old Testament, 
has come down to us in very late MSS., so that its testimony 
is of comparatively little value for the purposes of Textual 
Criticism. 

1 See L. MEcHINEAU, art. Ethiopienne (Version) de la Bible, in ViGourRoux’ Diction- 
naire de la Bible, col. 2031, sq. 


2 Most scholars are of the mind that only a recension from the Coptic or Arabic, not 
a new version, was made in the fourteenth century (cfr. MECHINEAU, loc. cit., col. 2026). 


304 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 


II. We know a little more for certain about the origin of 
the Armenian Version of the Bible, and its MSS. are of a 
somewhat earlier date. Up tothe invention of the Arme- 
nian alphabet by St. Mesrob (in 406 a.p.), the country to 
the east of Asia Minor and north of Mesopotamia, called 
Armenia, had no version of its own, and used the Syriac 
Scriptures in its public services.. But as soon as the alpha- 
bet had been provided the patriarch St. SAHAK, and two of 
his principal disciples, started translating into Armenian 
the Holy Scriptures, and completed their work in 411. This 
first translation ’ was naturally made from the Syriac Version 
hitherto used in the sacred liturgy, and included both Testa- 
ments. It was revised, about the year 433 with the help of 
“ authentic Greek copies of Holy Writ,” brought from Con- 
stantinople or Ephesus, and it underwent a second revision 
a little later by means of Alexandrine copies of the Sacred 
Scriptures. It is this latter work, clearly made from the 
Hexaplar Text of Origen for the Old Testament, since it con- 
tained its ofe/7 and asterisks, which became and ever since 
remained the Old Testament translation of the Armenian 
Church.’ Thecharacter of the Armenian Version of the New 
Testament is but little known. Naturally enough it repre- 
sents a very mixed kind of text, for it was formed by the 
mixture of sources so different as the Alexandrine and Con- 
stantinopolitan MSS.? 


1 A second translation was apparently made shortly afterwards, as we are told by the 
Armenian historian, Moses of Chorene, also from the Syriac (cfr. SCRIVENER, loc. cit., 
p. 149, sq.) HyvernaT, Armenienne (Version) de la Bible, in Vicouroux’ Dict. de la 
Bible, col. roro. 

2 Biblical scholars do not consider it probable that the Armenian Version was re- 
vised at a later period, by means of the Latin Vulgate. It seems, however, that I John 
v, 7 was inserted in it from the Latin Version (cfr. CorNELy, Introductio, etc., vol. i, p. 
387). 

5 One of the Armenian MSS. of the New Testament, written in 989, contains the last 
twelve verses of St. Mark, with a heading stating that they are “ of the elder Aristion,”’ 
who lived in the first century, and is spoken of by Papias, as having been a disciple of 
Our Lord. Most of the oldest Armenian MSS. of the Gospels do not contain Mark xvi, 
~g-20. 


THE SYRIAC AND COPTIC VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE. 305 


III. The Gothic Version was made for the Goths, while 
they were settled in Moesia. It was the work of their Arian 
bishop Ulfilas (318-388), after he had invented or adapted 
an alphabet for their use. It comprised both the Old and 
New Testaments, and as internal evidence clearly proves, the 
Old Testament was rendered from the Septuagint, and the 
New from the original Greek. Only a few fragments re- 
main of the Gothic Version, and the text which they pre- 
sent seems to belong, for the Old Testament to the Lucian 
Recension of the LXX, and for the New to the Syrian fam- 
ily of texts. - The most famous MS. of this translation is the 
Codex Argenteus, now preserved in Upsal (Sweden), and 
containing fragments of our four Gospels in Gothic letters 
usually of silver, sometimes of gold: it goes back to the fifth 
or early sixth century. 


SMINOTO LSM eG Luar | HRAAX L Ve 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. 


1 . 
1. Problems connected with its origin (The “ Vetus 
THE OLD ltala’’). 
LATIN 
2. Importance and principal characteristics. 
VERSION : 
Summary of his life. 
oe penal Bes Principal scriptural writings. 
base | Exceptional qualifications as a 
{| translator. 
Its component parts. 
2, Character: Critical, exegetical and literary 
value. 
Up to { Opposition at first. 
Epes | Simultaneous use 
II with the old Latin. 
Century: 7 : 
Rie areane Final adoption. 
Mather From the Corruptions and re- 
Seventh censions. 
Century 
to the Principal MSS. and 
Council of early printed edi- 
sp MALO SS Trent: tions. 
The decree of the Council of Trent 
concerning the Latin Vulgate. 
Early revised editions. 
Since the 
The editions of Sixtus 
Council of V and = Clement 
Vine 
Trent 
L Recent critical labors. 
306 


CHAR DERI hy. 
THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. 


§ 1. Zhe Old Latin Version. 


I. Problems Connected with its Origin: The 
“Vetus Itala.’’ Up to the middle of the eighteenth 
century all biblical scholars connected the origin of our 
Latin Vulgate with several Latin translations whose exist- 
ence they referred to a date almost contemporary with 
the foundation of the Roman Church. ‘They believed, 
chiefly on the authority of St. Augustine, that for the Old 
Testament, these Latin translations were made from» the 
Septuagint in very early times, and that one of these 
was known as the /fa@an or Jtala, from the place of its 
origin.’ The first to question the number of these old ver- 
sions was the learned P. Sabatier, O. S. B. ({ 1742), in a 
Preface to his collection of the extant fragments of the Latin 
versions before St. Jerome’s time, and his view found favor 
with several writers after him. It was reserved, however, 
for Card. Wiseman (f 186s), when yet a simple priest, to 
make this opinion for some time very prevalent among 
scholars. In his two letters on I John, v, 7, now found in 

1 Cfr. St. Aucustrng, On Christian Doctrine, Book ii, chaps. xi, xv. The passage 
in chap. xi reads as follows: “Those who turned (verterunt) the Scriptures frou 
Hebrew into Greek, can be counted, but the Latin interpreters (¢wferfrezfes) are innu- 
merable, for in the early days of the faith every one who got a Greek MS. into his 
hands, and thought he had some little acquaintance with each tongue, ventured to be 
an interpreter (ixterpretari ausus est)’ In chap. xv we read, “‘ Among these inter- 
pretations (whereby are meant real translations as proved by the use of the word in 


chap. xiv) the /¢a/z is preferable to all the others, because it keeps closer to the words 
without prejudice to clearness of expression.” 


3°7 


308 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


the first volume of his Zssays,’ he took up and added to the 
arguments already advanced in favor of this opinion by the 
German critic Eichhorn (f 1827), and he strenuously main- » 
tained that before St. Jerome, the Latin Church had only 
one translation of Holy Writ, that this version—now called 
the Old Latin, to distinguish it from the later version of St. 
Jerome—arose in North Africa, and that of the various revi- 
sions it underwent, the best, according to St. Augustine, was 
the one which this holy Doctor called the “ //a/a,” from the 
place where it was made and where he became acquainted 
with it. The theory advocated. by Wiseman was at first 
received with enthusiasm, and is now upheld by many able 
writers, among whom may be mentioned Gregory, Cornely, 
Trochon, White, S. Berger, Sanday, etc. As years went on, 
however, and as Wiseman’s arguments were more closely 
examined, the old opinion of several primitive Latin 
translations gradually revived, and it is now admitted by 
such eminent scholars as Kaulen, Danko, Gams, Roensch, 
Ziegler, L. Delisle, Ul. Robert, Gaston Paris, Vigouroux, 
etc. 

The principal arguments appealed to by the advocates of 
a single primitive Latin version which originated in Africa, 
are briefly as follows: 

(1) There was apparently no need of a Latin version in 
Rome and Italy, in the early times of Christianity, for Greek 
was familiar there and in common use even among artisans 
and slaves. Greek was in fact the language of the Church. 
St. Mark’s Gospel and St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans 
were written in Greek; “almost all the names which occur 
in the history of the Roman Church are Greek (as Cletus, 
Anacletus, Soter, Eleutherius, Evaristus, Telesphorus, etc.), 
and several of these were in fact Greeks by birth, and their 


1 These letters appeared first in The Catholic Magazine in 1832-3. 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. 309 


election to the pontificate indicates the preponderance of 
that nation in the Roman Church,’ and the acquaintance of 
their flock with the Greek language; but this is much better 
demonstrated by the fact that, for the first two centuries, 
and even later, we have hardly a single instance of an eccle- 
siastical writer, belonging to the Italian Church, composing 
his works in any language but Greek.”’? On the other hand, 
at the beginning of Christianity, Latin was the language of 
North Africa, and no early ecclesiastical writer belonging to 
Proconsular Africa (neither Tertullian, nor Cyprian, nor Lac- 
tantius, nor Minucius Felix, etc.), ever used the Greek lan- 
guage in the composition of his various works. Again, in 
the African Church, Latin was certainly in use for litur- 
gical and homiletical purposes. ‘The origin of a translation 
of the Holy Scriptures should therefore be connected not 
with Italy, but with North Africa, where alone it was prac- 
tically necessary. 

(2) An examination of the words and phrases in what 
remains to us of the old Latin Version, and a comparison 
with the peculiar Latin forms in use among the early African 
writers, prove that the primitive Latin Version was actually 
made in Africa. Wiseman*® quotes, as examples of these 
African idioms in the old Latin translation, the use of depo- 
nent verbs with a passive signification (promereor, minis- 
trari, etc.); the future of verbs of the fourth conjugation 
in zJ0 (partibor, metibor, etc.); the frequent recurrence of 
verbs compounded with super not found in the classics 
(supergaudeo, superaffluens, superexalto, etc.), and of verbs 
in zico (mortifico, clarifico, magnifico, etc.); non-classical 
grammatical constructions, as dominor with a genitive, ze/o 

1 The epitaphs of the Popes in the Catacombs are invariably in Greek. 

? WISEMAN, Essays, vol. i, p. 43, London, Chas. Dolman, 1853. Only two writers 

belonging to Italy, viz., Victor (+ 197) and Apollonius, were known to St. Jerome as 


having used Latin in their works before Tertullian. 
8 Loc. cit., p. 48, sqq. 


310 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


with an accusative; changes of tenses, as imperfect for 
pluperfect, etc. ; 

(3) From a comparison of the different texts of the old 
Latin Version that have come down to us, it is clear that, on 
the one hand, they have much in common, both in the under- 
lying Greek original and in language, and that, on the other 
hand, their variations are not more important than those 
which exist between the various recensions of the Sep- 
tuagint. It seems therefore that these different texts do not 
point to actually different translations, altogether independ- 
ent of one another, but rather to.one and the same primi- 
tive old version which has supplied what is common to the 
several forms of text, while it has itself undergone important 
changes due to more or less thorough revisions. . 

In answer to these arguments, the advocates of the multi- 
plicity of the old Latin versions affirm that none of them 
is strictly conclusive. Not the first, for even at Rome the 
popular language—the language consequently of most Chris- 
tians—would probably as much require a Latin version as 
the Christians at Carthage. ‘“ The inscriptions at Pompeii 
and Herculaneum are almost without exception in Latin, and 
De Rossi’s collection of Christian inscriptions in the Lateran 
Museum leads to the same conclusion.” * Nor is the second 
argument conclusive, for it has been shown to evidence that 
every supposed Africanism can be met with parallels from 
Christian and heathen writers who had nothing to do with 
Africa.”. Nor is the last argument of greater cogency, for 
‘while many of the differences noticed between the extant 
texts of the old Latin Version are fully compatible with the 
supposition that the African was the parent of the other 
texts, other differences, not so easily accounted for by a proc- 


1 The Catholic Dictionary, art. Vulgate, p. 851. 
2 This is the case with such Christian writers as the Latin translator of the works of St. 
Irenzus, the author of the Canon of Muratori, etc., and with such pagan authors as 


Plautus, Velleius Paterculus, Quintilian, etc. 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. 311 


ess of revision, afford some justification for the alternative 
view that Italy had an indigenous version of its own, not 
less original than the African. ‘The distinctively African 
renderings which occur not unfrequently in some of the best 
European documents may be explained in conformity with 
either view; as survivors from an earlier state, or as aliens 
introduced by mixture.” ’ 

Having thus shown the unconclusive character of the 
arguments adduced by their opponents, the advocates of the 
muitiplicity of the primitive Latin versions appeal to the 
clear testimony of St. AUGUSTINE already quoted, and to the 
somewhat less distinct expressions of St. H1Lary of Poitiers 
(t 367), and of TeRTULLIAN (jf ab. 240), asa traditional argu- 
ment of the greatest value in favor of their position.” They 
also claim that the manner in which St. Augustine describes 
the early origin of several Latin translations, viz., through 
individual and successive efforts, is in perfect harmony with 
what we know of the primitive condition of the Christian 
churches of Rome and Italy. As these churches used Greek 
in their liturgy, the making of vernacular translations for the 
public at large was naturally left to the efforts of private in- 
dividuals, and was no less naturally carried out by men, who, 
because they belonged to the poorer classes of society, had 
deeply felt the need of Latin translations, while they were 
not able to give anything but a close and rude rendering of 
the text before them. The language they used was, of course, 
the /ingua rustica, that is, the Latin language of the common 
people whether in Italy or in North Africa, and if the read- 
ings of the later Latin texts are more elegant, this may be 
ascribed to the fact that when one of the many current trans- 
lations was selected for public use in church, its style was 
improved so as to render it worthy of this higher purpose. 


1 Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, vol. ii, p. 79. 
2 St. Hivary, on Ps. liv, 1; TerruLiian, Against Marcion, Book ii, chap. ix, 


312 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Finally, it may be argued, that since, as we bei.eve, “it is 
admitted that there was more than one version of ‘1 obias, 
I and II Machabees and Baruch,’ the many partisans of 
several primitive Latin versions can hardly be blamed for 
contending that more than one version of the other books 
of the Bible, which were of incomparably greater importance 
(historically, liturgically, spiritually, etc.) to the faithful at 
large, must likewise have been made. 


2. Importance and Principal Characteristics of the 
Old Latin Version. But while recent scholars are at vari- 
ance concerning the precise origin of the old Latin Version, 
they all agree upon its manifold importance. All admit that 
It goes back, at the latest, to the second part of the second 
rentury, that is, to a period much older than our most 
ancient MSS. of the New Testament, to a time even anterior 
to the various recensions of the LXX by Origen, Lucian 
and Hesychius, so that did we possess it in its entirety and 
primitive purity, it would prove a most valuable witness to 
the textual condition of the New Testament Greek, and of 
the Septuagint Version at that early date.3 All grant that it 


1 The Catholic Dictionary, p. 849. 

2 This is proved by the manner in which Tertullian (ab. 200) speaks of the Latin Ver- 
sion then in use (cfr. Against Praxeas, chap. v; Against Marcion, Book v, chap. iv; etc. 

3 We possess the old Latin Version of the New Testament, complete. Of its 38 ex- 
tant MSS., 28 contain the Gospels, 4 the Acts, 5 the Catholic Epistles, 8 the Pauline 
Epistles, and 3 the Apocalypse. The principal among them are: for the Gospels, the 
Codices Vercellensis (fourth cent.), Veronwensis, and Palatinus (fourth or fifth cent.) ; for 
the Acts, the Codex Beze, the Codex Laudianus; for the Pauline Epistles, the Codex 
Claromontanus, These MSS. are indicated by the smallitalic letters of the alphabet. Of 
the old Latin version of the Old Testament we are far from possessing a complete text. 
Beside those deutero-canonical books and parts of books of the Old Latin translation 
which have been simply embodied in our Vulgate, we have only the Psalter, in a slightly 
altered form; Job, Esther, the Pentateuch, Josue and most of the book of Judges and 
fragments of other books, preserved in some ancient MSS. The best edition of what 
remains of the old Latin Version is that of P. Sabatier, already referred to, to which 
should be added the edition of the Lyons Pentateuch by Ul. Robert, and of the frag- 
ments of III and IV Kings by J. Haupt. For further information, see Smrrn, Bib. Dict. 
art. Vulgate; Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel, p. liii; La 
Revue Biblique, for January, 1896, p. 138. 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. elite, 


included not only the proto- but also the deutero-canonical 
books and parts of books of the Old Testament, so that its 
testimony has considerable importance in the history of the 
Canon of Holy Writ. All admit also that its Latinity, how- 
ever rude or otherwise defective, has exercised a great in- 
fluence upon the renderings of the Vulgate, and through the 
Vulgate upon our modern translations of Holy Writ and 
ecclesiastical language; and there is no doubt that its non- 
classical forms and expressions form a very good introduc- 
tion to the “ngua rustica of the second century. 

One leading feature of the old Latin Version remains to 
be mentioned, and it is one which makes it all the more re- 
grettable that this oldest Western translation has not come 

‘down to us in its entirety and primitive purity.t Made from 
the Aown edocs for the Old Testament, and from the current 
Greek Text for the New, it rendered the text with that “ ex- 
act literality which was not confined to the most minute 
observance of order and the accurate reflection of the words 
of the original: in many cases the very forms of Greek con- 
struction were retained in violation of Latin usage. <A few 
examples of these singular anomalies will convey a better 
idea of the absolute certainty-with which the Latin common- 
ly indicates the text which the translator had before him, 


1 In his Preface to the Gospels addressed to Pope Damasus, St. Jerome speaks thus 
of the corruption of the old Latin Version in the fourth century: ‘‘ Si latinis exemplari- 
bus fides est adhibenda, respondeant quibus: tot enim sunt exemplaria pene quot codices. 
Sin autem veritas est quzrenda de pluribus, cur non ad Gracam originem revertentes, 
ea que vel a vitiosis interpretibus male reddita, vel a prasumptuosis imperitis emendata 
perversius, vel a librariis dormitantibus aut addita sunt, aut mutata corrigimus. . . 
Magnus in nostris codicibus (Evangeliorum) error inolevit, dum quod in eadem re alius 
Evangelista plus dixit, in alio quia minus putaverint, addiderunt. Vel dum eumdem scn- 
sum alius aliter expresserit, ille qui unum e quatuor primum legerat, ad ejus exemplum 
ceterosque existimaverit emendandos. Unde accidit ut apud nos mixta sint omnia ” 
(Miang, P. L., vol. xxix, col. 526, sq.). Tn like manner, in his Pref. to Josue, he writes : 
““ Maxime cum apud Latinos tot sint exemplaria, quot codices ; et unusquisque pro arbi- 
trio suo vel addiderit, vel suitraxerit quod ei visum est ” (MiGnr, ibid, vol. xxviii, col. 
463). (See also the words of St. Augustine writing to St. Jerome, MiGnzg, ibid., vol. xxii, 
col, 834.) 


314 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


than any general statements: Matt. iv, 13, habitavit in Ca- 
pharnaum maritimam ,; id. 15, terra Nephtalim vam maris ; id. 
25, ab Jerosolymis . . . et trans Jordanem; y, 22, reus erit 
in gehennam ignis; vi, 19, ubi tinea et comestura exterminat. 
Mark xii, 31, mayus horum preceptorum aliud nonest. Luke 
x, 19, nihil vos nocebit. . . . It is obvious that there was a 
continual tendency to alter expressions like these, and in 
the first age of the version, it is not improbable that the 
continual Grecism which marks the Latin texts of D, (Cod. 
Bezze), and E, (Cod. Laudianus) had a wider currency than 
* It is likewise clear, that, did 
we possess such close rendering of the pre-Hexaplar Text of 
the Septuagint, and of the second century Greek Text of the 


it could maintain afterwards.” 


New Testament, it would be a comparatively easy task to 
reconstruct both the one and the other, and thus reach with 
perfect certainty a text much nearer to the one used by the 
Apostles, than we can ever obtain by any other critical 
means. 


§ 2. The Latin Vulgate. 


1. Its Author. The celebrated reviser of the old Latin 
and author of the new Latin Version, or Latin Vulgate, was 
Lusebius Hieronymus, more commonly known under the 
name of St. JEROME. He was born at Stridon, a town near 
Aquileia, but belonging to Pannonia, about the year 346. 
From his early youth he was a vigorous student under his 
father Eusebius, who was a Christian, and age diminished 
nothing of his zeal for learning. When about seventeen 
years old he was sent to complete his education at Rome, 
where he became acquainted with Greek philosophy and 
Roman literature. Christian Rome exercised great influence 

1 Westcott, in Smith, Bib. Dict., art. Vulgate. For an example illustrating the same 


feature in connection with the Old Test., see DE WeTTeE, Introd. to the Old Testament, 
vol. i, p. 187 (Engl. Transl. by Th. Parker). 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. 315 


upon his mind: he speaks in his Commentary on Ezechiel, 
of the feelings of piety with which he visited the tombs of 
the martyrs in the Catacombs, and we know that it was dur- 
ing his sojourn in that city that he received baptism, while 
Liberius was pope, that is, before the year 366. 

At the close of his studies in Rome, he determined to visit 
Gaul, and it is at this time that he made the acquaintance of 
Rufinus, subsequently his rival and bitter opponent. After 
a short stay in Gaul, St. Jerome lived some years in Aquileia, 
in the company of talented young men, such as the presbyter 
Chromatius (afterwards Bishop of Aquileia), Rufinus, Bono- 
sus, Heliodorus (afterwards Bishop of Altinum), etc., who 
were all devoted, like himself, to sacred studies and to the 
ascetic life. When this company of friends was suddenly 
broken up—in the beginning of 373—St. Jerome travelled 
through Thrace, Pontus, Bithynia, Galatia, Cappadocia and 
Cilicia, to Antioch, where a dream changed the tenor of his 
life. Christ appeared to him, and severely rebuked him for 
being no Christian, but a Ciceronian, who preferred worldly 
literature to Christ. 

Withdrawing from Antioch, St. Jerome retired to the 
wastes of Chalcis, southeast of the Syrian capital, and led 
there from 374 to 379, the hard life of the monks of that 
desert, after which he returned to Antioch, where Bishop 
Paulinus ordained him presbyter. Thence he went to Con- 
stantinople (in 380) to sit at the feet of Gregory Nazianzen, 
and after the resignation of that holy bishop (in 381) he 
went to Rome—where Pope Damasus desired his presence, 
—in the train of the Bishops Paulinus of Antioch and Epi- 
phanius of Constantia (in Cyprus). 

St. Jerome’s sojourn in Rome lasted till the death of his 
friend and patron, St. Damasus (ft 384) and was devoted 
to scriptural study and the advancement of monastic life. 
A company of noble and pious women, among whom may be 


316 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


mentioned Paula, Julia Eustochium, Paulina, Marcella, etc., 
followed his spiritual guidance and listened eagerly to his 
expositions of the sacred books. ‘Then it was also that 
Pope Damasus bade him revise the Psalter and apparently 
the whole New Testament. But if Jerome had many and 
devoted friends in Rome, he had also violent enemies; and 
these, upon the death of Damasus, practically compelled him 
to leave the city. Bidding therefore a final farewell to Rome, 
he started for the holy land, spent a short time in Alexan- 
dria, to profit by the lessons of Didymus, and finally settled 
down in Bethlehem (autumn of 386). A monastery was 
built, of which Jerome became the head, and a convent over 
which Paula, who had accompanied her teacher to Palestine, 
presided. Here this great scholar spent the last thirty-four 
years of his life (386-420), engaged in devotional and liter- 
ary labors, but finding also time to share in the ecclesiastical 
disputes of the day. 

Of the numerous writings of St. Jerome, there are only a 
few whose perusal would not prove beneficial to the student 
of Holy Writ, for even from his historical, ascetical and po- 
lemical works, useful information concerning the Bible may 
often be gathered. Most valuable, however, in this respect, 
are those writings of the holy Doctor which have the Sacred 
Scriptures for their direct object. Thus, many of his Zet 
ters are real commentaries on particular passages, usually in 
the form of questions and answers. ‘The principal among 
these are ‘‘to Amandus (Epist. 55) on the last verse of St. 
Matt. vi; to Marcella (Epist. 59) in answer to questions on 
scriptural passages relating to the judgment and the heav- 
enly state; to Fabiola (Ep. 64) on the dress of the high 
priest; to Principia (Ep. 65) on Ps. xliv; to Vitalis (Epist. 
72) on the difficulties of the chronology of some of the 
Jewish kings ; to Evangelus (Ep. 73) on Melchisedech; .. . 
and the elaborate letter to Sunnias and Fretela, two presby- 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. a) 


ters in the country of the Getz, in answer to their question 
on the text of Scripture, in which the reasons are plainly 
given which induced him to leave the LXX and to translate 
direct from the Hebrew.” ’ 
his ¢vanslations of the Commentaries of Origen on Jeremias, 
Ezechiel, the Canticle of Canticles, and the Gospel of St. 
Luke,’ and his own original commentaries on Ecclesiastes, 
Isaias, Jeremias (chaps. i-xxxii), Ezechiel, the Minor 
Prophets, St. Matthew’s Gospel, and the Epistles to the 
Galatians, Ephesians, Titus and Philemon. His work “on 


Of greater importance still are 


Hebrew proper names,” and his translation of Eusebius’ 
book “on the sites and names of the Hebrew places,” 
which were intended to illustrate Holy Writ, laid the founda- 
tion of the science of Biblical Archeology. 

But all these writings, however valuable, cannot compare 
in importance with his work as a reviser and translator of 
the Sacred Scriptures. As in the second ‘part of the fourth 
century, the text of the old Latin Version used in the pub- 
lic services of the Church, had, through mistakes of tran- 
scription and other causes,3 become extremely unsatisfactory. 
St. Jerome undertook, at the request of Pope Damasus, 
what he terms the ‘“ pzus labor, sed periculosa presumptio”’ of 
its revision.” He began with the New Testament, which he 
revised from old Greek MSS., correcting most likely, as he 
tells us he did for the Gospels, ‘“ only those passages whose 
rendering was contrary to the sense of the original.”’* The 
part of the Old Testament which claimed first his attention 


1 FREMANTLE, in Smith’s Dictionary of Christian Biography, art. Hieronymus, vol. 
lii, p. 38. 

* There is also a translation of Origen’s homilies on Isaias, attributed to St. Jerome. 

’ These various causes are enumerated by St. Jerome in his Preface to the Gospels 
addressed to St. Damasus, and already quoted. 

4 Preface to the Gospels, Micng, Patr. Lat., vol. xxix, col. 525. 

5“ Quz ne multum a lectionis latina consuetudine discreparent, ita calamo tempera- 
vimus, ut his tantum quz sensum videbantur mutare correctis, reliqua manere pater- 
emur ut fuerant” (Pref. to the Gospels, Micner, ibid.). This correction of the New 
Testament was made in Rome between 382 and 385. 


318 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


was naturally the book of Psalms, because of its constant 
use in the liturgy, and because also of the greater alterations 
it had undergone under the pen of careless transcribers. 
He revised it at Rome, in 383, from the Avw7 of the Sep- 
tuagint “rather hastily” (cursim), as he puts it, and his. 
work, introduced by St. Damasus into the Roman liturgy, 
received the name of Psalterium Romanum.’ Subsequently, 
(about 388) having become acquainted with the Hexaplar 
Text of Origen, he again revised the Psalter, preserving in 
his text the obeli and asterisks, and this second recension 
of the book of Psalms, which is called the Psalterium Gal- 
licanum, because of the currency it soon obtained in Gaul, 
is the one now embodied in the Roman Breviary and in 
the Latin Vulgate.” In the same manner did he proceed 
gradually with all the books of the Old Testament, correcting 
the old Latin Version by the /fexafdar Text, but, with the ex- 
ception of the book of Job, this work has all been lost by the 
treachery of some person to whom he had committed the MS.3 

While St. Jerome was engaged in revising the old Latin 
translation, he began a new version directly from the 
Hebrew. To this arduous work he had been repeatedly 
urged by many of his friends, and in undertaking it he not 
only desired to comply with their wishes, but also intended 
to help Christians in their controversies with the Jews.* 
During fifteen years (from 391 to 404) he issued at different 
intervals the translation of one or several books, accordingly 
as was requested of him by his friends, so that it is difficult 
at the present day to give the exact date and order of the 

1 It is the text of the Psalter still in use in the Church of St. Peter, in Rome. 

2 The two Psalters (Roman and Gallican) are found in parallel columns in Micneg, 
Pat. Lat.. vol. xxix. 

3“ Pleraque enim prioris laboris fraude cujusdam amisimus’”’ (Epist. 134; MiIcNne, 
Patr. Lat., vol. xxii, col. 1162.) 

4 Cfr. Pref. to Isaias (MiGNkg, ibid., vol. xxviii, col. 774); Epist. to Augustine, 112 


(MiGng, ibid., vol. xxii, col. 929). See, also, the texts quoted by DE Werte, Introd. 
to the O. T., vol. i, p. 257, sqq. (Engl. Transl). 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. 319 


appearance of its various parts. His activity seems to, have 
been at its maximum during the years 391 and 392, for 
during that short period he published his translation of no 
less than twenty-two books, viz., all the Prophets (except 
Baruch), the two books of Samuel, the two books of Kings, 
Job and the Psalms.’ About the same time, if not indeed 
in 392, he rendered from the Aramaic, Tobias and Judith. 
Then followed the translation of Esdras and Nehemias, of 
the two books of Chronicles, and of the Solomonic writings 
(Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Canticle). Lastly, between 
398 and 404, he published his version of the Pentateuch, 
Esther, Josue, Judges and Ruth. 

There can be no doubt that Jerome was the most com- 
petent man of his day for the work of a biblical translator. 
He was no novice in the art of translating when he under- 
took his version directly from the Hebrew, and his knowl- 
edge of the sacred tongue was indeed considerable for his 
time. Willingly did he avail himself of the learning and 
exegetical traditions of the Jewish rabbis, and made the 
most of the labors of those who had preceded him in the 
great work of rendering the Hebrew Text. He was familiar 
with the scenes and customs alluded to in Holy Writ, and, 
despite the opposition and even calumny which his labors 
had to meet, he unflinchingly carried out the great work for 
which Providence had fitted him. ‘ His method was, first, 
never to swerve needlessly from the original; second, to 
avoid solecisms; third, at all risks, even that of introducing 
solecisms, to give the true sense;* and these are unques- 
tionably sound principles which a translator should ever 
bear in mind. Thus, then, St. Jerome was far better 

1 This direct translation of the Psalms from the Hebrew Text was never embodied in 
the Latin Vulgate. 

2 SmiTH, Dictionary of Christian Biography, vol. iii, p. 48. For the passages of St. 


Jerome, in which he himself describes his own method, see De WerTs, loc. cit., pp. 
260-262; TROCHON, Introduction Générale, tom. i, p. 431, footnotes. 


320 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 10 THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


equipped than any man of his time for his work as a trans-: 
lator. Nay, more, Westcott has not feared to say that “he 
(Jerome) probably alone for 1,500 years possessed the 
qualifications necessary for producing an original version of 
the Scriptures for the use of the Latin churches.” * 


2. Character of the Latin Vulgate. If we briefly 
sum up the details given above concerning the work of St. 
Jerome as a reviser and translator of the sacred books, we 
shall find that our present Latin Vulgate is a composite 
version, which, in almost its entirety, bears the impress of 
St. Jerome’s genius, and which consequently may be justly 
ascribed to him as his work. Viewed from this standpoint, 
our Latin Vulgate has three component parts. The first 
part is distinctively St. Jerome’s work, inasmuch as it is no 
other than his own translation of the proto-canonical books 
of the Old Testament (except that of the Psalter, as already 
stated), which he rendered from the Hebrew, and of the books 
of Tobias and Judith, which he translated from the Aramaic. 
The second component part of our Latin Version can also 
be referred to him, for it includes those books which he 
revised from the Greek, viz., the Psalterium Gallicanum cor- 
rected on the AYexaplar Text of the Septuagint, and all the 
books of the New Testament revised from the original Greek. , 
Only the third, and least extensive part of the Vulgate, does 
not really belong to St. Jerome, for it is made up of the 
deutero-canonical books of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, 
and I, If Machabees, and of the deutero-canonical portions 
of Esther and Daniel, with which he distinctly declined to 
have anything to do,’ and which nevertheless were later em- 
bodied in the Vulgate, such as they had been preserved in 
the old Latin Version. 


1 SmitTH, Bib. Dic., art. Vulgate, vol. iv, p. 3459 (Amer. edit.). 
2 The attitude of St. Jerome towards the deutero-canonical books of the Old Testa 
“ent has already been examined. See chap. ii, § 3. 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. 321 


As might naturally be expected, the several parts of. such 
composite work as the Latin Vulgate, are not all of the 
same critical and literary value. The critical data afforded 
by the New Testament, although generally regarded as far 
superior to those which are supplied by the Old Testament, 
are themselves of a mixed character, on account of the two 
elements of which the Latin translation is made up. On 
the one hand, the o/d@ Latin Version, which it reproduces 
substantially, is a most valuable witness in the history of the 
New Testament Greek, because it goes back to the second 
century ; while, on the other hand, the corrections made in it 
by St. Jerome on countless points, represent simply the text 
of Greek MSS. of the fourth century. As regards the trans- 
lation of the Old Testament, it should be remembered that 
the Hebrew Text accessible to St. Jerome was practically 
identical with that which has come down to us, for although 
the Massoretes are much later in date than Jerome, yet the 
text which they stereotyped had been transmitted to them 
without considerable changes, since the second century after 
Christ. Hence it naturally follows that the text of the Latin 
Vulgate of the Old Testament, even where it renders most 
closely the original Hebrew, is of comparatively little help 
for the correction of the Hebrew Zextus Receptus, since it 
seldom, if ever, allows us to recover Hebrew readings which 
go back to the period before the Christian era. It is true 
that many times, and indeed in some very important passages, 
our Latin Vulgate seems to point to a text different from 
the Massoretic; this is not usually, however, a proof that 
St. Jerome had really before him a reading no longer found 
in our Hebrew Bible. Time and again the divergences, 
when closely examined, must be accounted for by the free- 
dom which the holy Doctor allows himself in rendering the 
sacred text, and which is unquestionably greater than he is 


himself willing to acknowledge when he writes in his preface 
21 


322 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 


to the books of Kings, that “ he is altogether unconscious of 
any wilful departure from the Hebraica Veritas.” 

Thus his desire to avoid what he considers useless repeti- 
tions in the Hebrew narrative betrays him into a complete 
suppression of important particulars, as may be seen in Gen. 
XXx1x, Ig; and in the following example from Gen. xl, 12, 


sq., where practically two entire verses are expunged : 


HEBREW TEXT: 


V. 12. Et adduces Aaron et filios 
ejus ad ostium tabernaculi conven- 
tus et lavabis eos aqua; 

13. Et indues Aaron vestibus 
sanctis et unges eum, et sanctifica- 
bis eum, et sacerdotio fungetur 


VULGATE: 


V. 12. Applicabisque Aaron et 
filios ejus ad fores tabernaculi tes- 
timonii, et lotos aqua 

13. indues sanctis vestibus ut 
ministrent mihi et unctio eorum in 
sacerdotium sempiternum proficiat. 


mihi; 

14. Et filios ejus adduces et in- 
dues eos tunicis ; 

15. Et unges eos sicut unxisti 
patrem eorum et sacerdotio fun- 
gentur mihi: et erit, ut sit illis ista 
unctio in sacerdotium sempiternum 
in generationes eorum. 


Again, the hurried manner in which he made his transla- 
tion of Tobias and Judith—devoting to the former only a 
single day, and to the latter, part of a night (wna /ucubra- 
tiuncula)'—explains how our version of Judith is indeed 
very free, and that of Tobias seems at times to be an abridg- 
ment rather than a translation of the original, long since 
lost, but presumably conformed to the Greek of the LXX, 
and to the old Latin Version. 

But by far the most fruitful source in the Vulgate of de- 
partures from the Hebrew is the anxiety of St. Jerome to 


1Cfr. Pref. to Tobias, Micne, Pat. Lat., vol. xxix, col. 26; Pref. to Judith, Micne, 
ibid., col. 39. The version of the Solomonic writings was also the work of only three 
days (M1Gng, ibid., vol. xxviii, col. 1241). 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. 323 


set forth more clearly a certain. number of passages which 
were commonly considered as Messianic prophecies. We 
have an example of this in his translation of the prophetic 
words of the dying patriarch Jacob to his son Juda in Gen. 
xlix, 10, as may be seen by a comparison of the Vulgate 
with a literal translation of the Hebrew: 


VULGATE : HEBREW : 

Non auferetur sceptrum de Juda, Non recedet sceptrum de Juda 
Et dux de femore ejus, Nec baculus (the ruler’s staff) de 
Donec veniat qui mittendus est, inter pedes ejus, 

Et ipse erit expectatio gentium. Donec veniat cujus est, 


Et ipsi obedientia gentium. 


Most of the differences of meaning noticeable in this pas- 
sage must indeed be traced to the old Latin Version ' from 
which St. Jerome thought it prudent many times not to 
depart ; but the reference to the Messias so distinctly ex- 
pressed in the clause ‘‘ donec veniat qui mittendus est ”’ and 
which could be obtained only by an arbitrary reading of the 
Hebrew Text, must unquestionably be ascribed to him. 

The prophecy of the Seventy Weeks of Daniel, is another 
case in point. By adding a few words and modifying the 
meaning of others, he gave ita predictive distinctness hardly 
borne out by the original.” This is also the case with many 
passages of Isaias, the Messianic meaning of which he con- 
siderably altered by what he pretends to be but a slight 
change in the signification of words. ‘Thus the clause “ erit 
sepulchrum ejus gloriosum ” in chap. x1, 10, means really in 
the Hebrew: “ His dwelling-place shall be glorious,” and in 


1 Cfr. Mreng, Patr. Lat., vol. xxiv, col. 149, where St. Jerome quotes the rendering of 
the old Latin Version as follows: “ Non deficiet princeps ex Juda, neque dux de femo- 
ribus ejus, donec veniat cui repositum est, et ipse erit expectatio gentium.” 

? For details in connection with this prediction of Daniel (ix, 24-27) cfr. CorLuy, Spici- 
legium Dogmatico-Biblicum, vol. i, pp. 474-513 ; A. A. Bevan, A Short Commentary on 
the Book of Daniel, p. 153, sqq. 


324 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


no way refers to the sepulchre of the Messias ; again, in the 
second part, xlv, 8, we find “nubes pluant justum, ape- 
riatur terra et germinet Sa/vatorem” in which the concrete 
terms “justum”’ and “ Salvatorem ”’ convey to the Christian 
reader a meaning certainly more definite than the abstract 
words “ justitia,”’ “ salus ” by which the Hebrew should be 
rendered.’ 

It must even be said that he went still further, and gave 
to a few passages a Messianic character which they never 
possessed in the original, as for example, when he renders 
Isaias xvi, 1, by “ Emitte agnum, Domine, dominatorem 
terre, de petra deserti, ad montem filia Sion,” it is clear 
that he inserts an allusion to the future Lamb of God which 
is unwarranted by the Hebrew. In this passage, the prophet 
simply tells the king of the pastoral country of Moab so rich 
in flocks (Numb. xxxul, 4) and who formerly sent lambs as 
a tribute to Samaria (IV Kings iii, 4) that he should send 
them henceforth to Jerusalem. The exact translation of the 
verse is therefore: “Send ye the lambs of (due to) the ruler 
of the land, from Petra, which is toward the wilderness, to 
the mountain of the daughter of Sion.” 

We might also point out a certain number of passages in 
which the translation assumes a dogmatic or moral bearing 
which seems to be outside that of the original. The most 
striking is to be found in the rendering of the well-known 
passage of Job: ‘“‘Scio quod Redemptor meus vivit,” ete. 
(xix, 25-27), commonly appealed to as a proof of the resur- 
rection of the body. The proof indeed is clear enough, the 
version of St. Jerome once admitted. But as many Catholic 
scholars think, that version is neither literal nor accurate. 
We place side by side the rendering of St. Jerome and the 
translation made by Corluy, S. J.: 


1Cfr. CorNELY, Introductio, vol. i, p. 427. 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. 


VULGATE : 


Scio quod Redemptor meus vivit, 

Et zz novissimo de de terra sur- 
recturws sum , 

Et rursum circumdadéor pelle mea, 

Et zz carne mea videbo Deum 
meum, 

Quem visurus sum e@go zfse, 

IXt oculi mei conspecturi sunt et 


AEBREW TEXT: 


Novi vizdicem meum viventem 
Et postremus super pulverem surges 
Et postea pelle mea circumdabuztur 

hee (corporis mei membra) 
Et ex carne mea intuebor Deum 
Quem ego intuebor mhz 
Et oculi mei videbunt et non alius: 
Defecerunt renes mei in sinu meo 


non alius : 
Reposita est hec spes mea in sinu 
meo. 


Thus in the Hebrew, it is God Himself,—the defender (the 
G6’el) not the edeemer—who is proclaimed as living ; it is 
ffe,—not Job—who will rise up, that is, appear,—not om the 
last day—but at the close of the ordeal in defence of His 
servant who then, restored to health, will as it were behold 
Him with his own eyes. The hope here expressed by Job - 
seems therefore (as was realized centuries ago by St. John 
Chrysostom) to be an anticipation of what the book describes 
in its last chapters, viz., the apparition of God, whom the 
patriarch declares that “he sees now with his own eyes” 
(xlii, 5),—who pronounces Himself in favor of Job,—and 
who restores to him health and all manner of earthly bless- 
ings (xli, 7, sq.).’ 

These are indeed serious defects in our translation of 
Holy Writ, and they should be borne in mind, when we 
endeavor to determine the extent to which this official 
version of the Church corresponds truly to the original 
text. But they should not make us lose sight of the real 
excellence of St. Jerome’s translation considered as a whole. 
“Tt is admitted on all hands that Jerome’s version from the 

1 For a detailed discussion of the passage, see Cortuy loc. cit., vol. i, pp. 278-296 ; 
Lesétre, Le Livre de Job, p. 126, sqq.; A. B. Davipson, The Book of Job, p. 142, 


sqq. ; and Appendix, p. 291, sqq.; Jahn, Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 468, sq. 
(Engl. Transl.). 


326 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Hebrew is a masterly work, and that there is nothing like it 
or near it in antiquity. <A perfect work it could not be, and 
this for the very reasons which may well increase admiration 
for the measure of success which Jerome actually reached. 
Few advantages were open to him which are denied to 
modern scholars. Hebrew had ceased for centuries to be a 
living tongue, and Jerome, moreover, had to learn it orally ; 
there was no such thing as a Hebrew grammar, or a dic- 
tionary, or a concordance. ‘The comparative philology of 
the Semitic languages, often the only key to the meaning 
of Hebrew words, is the creation of modern times; and 
Jerome knew no other Semitic language except Chaldee 
(Aramaic), and that very imperfectly.” * 

‘Of the many literary merits of the Latin Vulgate, we shall 
simply mention here (1) its general elegance, which is most 
remarkable, rendering as it does almost every Hebrew word, 
while it flows in Latin sentences from which the stiff con- 
struction of the original usually disappears. For example, 
St. Jerome wrote “Elevatis itaque Lot oculis vidit. .. ,” 
instead of ¢/'elévavit “Lotmoculosesuos cz ,vidit™ 7, 37 (2 
its usual clearness of expression, often due to the fact that 
the translator renders, as he says, ‘rather the sense than 
the words,” and even adopts popular ways of speaking in 
vogue among his contemporaries ;3 (3) its general faithful- 
ness in giving the sense of the original, although St. Jerome 
had before him only an unpointed text, and felt repeatedly 
bound to abide by the established current version of the 
time, in order to avoid offending the prejudices of its ad- 
mirers." 


1 The Catholic Dictionary, art. Vulgate, p. 855. 

2 Gen. xiii, 10; cfr. also xxxili, 1; Exod. xix, 7; Levit. xxiv, 18, etc., etc. 

3 Cfr. Vicouroux, Manuel Biblique, vol. i, n. 135. 

4 In connection with passages where he thus follows the rendering of the old Latin 
Version against his own independent judgment, it must be said that St. Jerome some- 
times corrects his translation in his Commentaries. 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. 327 


3. History of the Latin Vulgate. Despite its lit- 
erary excellence and manifold superiority over existing trans- 
lations of Holy Writ, the work of St. Jerome was _ received 
at first with great opposition. From Jerome’s letters and 
prefaces to the various parts of his translation, we learn that 
prejudice, ignorance, envy '—and also nobler motives, such 
as the fear, apparently well-founded, that St. Augustine enter- 
tained lest “the public reading of something new and op- 
posed to the authority of the Septuagint would disturb the 
Christians whose hearts and ears had been accustomed to 
that translation which was even approved of by the Apostles 
themselves,” *—induced many to depreciate his work, or to 
prevent its public use in church. In vain did he argue that 
he had not made a new translation to do away altogether 
with his former revision of the LXX; that the LXX them- 
selves were far from having produced a faultless version of 
Holy Writ; that the Jews could not help recognizing the 
great accuracy of his renderings; that the very detract- 
ors of his work read it in private, a clear proof of its real 
value; that even a Greek bishop, Sophronius, had so well 
realized the superiority of the new Latin translation that he 
had rendered into Greek the Psalms and the Prophets, etc. 
All these and other such arguments went for very little with 
men blinded by ignorance or prejudice,3 and only a few of 
Jerome’s contemporaries,—among whom may be mentioned 
Lucinius, a Spanish bishop, and apparently also St. Augus- 
tine in his later writings,—did justice to the excellent work 


i Cfr. for instance, his Prefaces to Esdras and to Paralip, 

* Cfr. Micne, Patr. Lat., Epist. cxvi, col. 952. Elsewhere St. Augustine relates 
the story of an old African bishop, who, using Jerome’s new version of Jonas, read in 
the church lesson the word “ ivy ” instead of “ gourd’’; a change which started up the 
people in such wild excitement that they refused to be quieted till they got their old 
Latin Version back. 

3 The malice of St. Jerome’s opponents went so far as to induce them to circulate 
under his name among the African bishops a letter in which he was made to “ express 
his repentance and to avow that he had been seduced by the Jews in his youth to trans- 
late the Hebrew books into Latin ”’ (cfr. Apology against Rufinus, Book ii, chap. xxiv). 


B20 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


of the solitary of Bethlehem. It has indeed been supposed 
that had St. Jerome been less bitter in his denunciations of 
his adversaries, whom he calls at times ‘“ fools,’ “ stupid 
fellows,” ‘two-legged donkeys,” etc., the power of his argu- 
ments and the real value of his version would have been 
more readily acknowledged by his opponents. ‘This, how- 
ever, may well be doubted; most of them were either his 
personal enemies, or firm believers in the inspired character 
of the Septuagint whose renderings were very widely de- 
parted from by St. Jerome, so that they were simply bent on 
one thing, viz., the depreciation of his work. 

Be this as it may, it is highly probable that the very heat 
of the controversy contributed not a little to make known 
more rapidly the new Latin Version by challenging com- 
parison between it and the older translation. In point of 
fact, throughout the fifth century, that is only a few years 
after the death of its author, the new translation was highly 
esteemed and freely used by such writers as Cassianus, 
Prosper of Aquitaine, St. Eucherius, St. Vincent of Lerins, 
St. Mamertus, Faustus of Riez and Salvianus. 

In the following century “ the Vulgate and the Old Latin ” 
continued to exist side by side. Complete Bibles were then 
rare. ‘ Morecommonly, a volume would contain only one 
group of books, such as the Pentateuch or the Prophets, 
the Gospels or the Pauline Epistles ; and it would very easily 
happen that the library of any one individual would have 
some of these groups according to the older version, and 
others according to the Vulgate. Hence we find Christian 
writers in the fifth and sixth centuries using sometimes one 
version and sometimes the other; and when complete copies 
of the Bible came to be written some books might be copied 
from MSS. of the one type, and others from those of the 
other. Special familiarity with particular books was a 
strong bar to the acceptance of the new text. Thus the 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. 329 


Gospels continued to circulate in the old Latin much later 
than the Prophets, and the old version of the Psalms was 
never superseded by Jerome’s translation at all, but con- 
tinues to this day to hold its place in the received Bible of 
the Roman Church.” ' 

Thus did the several parts of the new version gradually 
come into common use in Spain, Gaul, and even in Italy, 
where, after considerable variation on the part of the Holy 
See with regard to the relative value of the two transla- 
tions,” the weight of authority was finally thrown in favor of 
the version of St. Jerome. This came to pass especially 
through the influence of Pope St. Gregory the Great (f 604), 
and of the illustrious writer Cassiodorus, who, in the last 
years of the sixth century enjoyed such authority with their 
contemporaries, and who used the Latin Vulgate in pref- 
erence to the old Latin translation. From this time forth, 
the victory of the Vulgate was secured, and in the seventh 
century, the transcription of the old Latin Version became 
more and more rare, with the final result somewhat emphat- 
ically stated by St. Isidore of Seville (f 636) that “ all the 
Churches” used the Vulgate. Early in the ninth century 
Rabanus Maurus says the same thing, almost in the words 
of Isidore, and Walafrid Strabo, the disciple of Rabanus, 
writes ‘ the whole Roman Church now everywhere uses this 
translation.”’3 The Council of Trent, in a decree which we 
shall have to examine further on, declared the Vulgate to 
be the authentic version of the Church, and in doing so 
appealed with good right to the long use of ages.” * 

1 Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient MSS., p. 175. 

2 Cfr, Trocuon, Introduction Générale, p. 435 ; CoRNELY, Introductio Generalis in 
Libros Sacros, p. 430 ; CHAuvin, Lecons d’Introduction Générale, p. 343, sq. 

8 It should however be borne in mind, that while the lessons of the Breviary and the 
Missal were gradually taken from the Latin Vulgate, the liturgical parts which were sung 
by the choir, such as‘the Introit, Giadual, Offertory, etc., were not interfered with, and 


are still in fair number referrable to the old Latin translation. 
* The Catholic Dictionary, art. Vulgate, p. 852, sq. 


330 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


During the course of the two centuries which elapsed 
between the time of St. Jerome and the general reception of 
his work, corruptions of a very extensive character crept 
naturally into the text of the Latin Vulgate. Not only the 
ordinary mistakes in transcription of which we spoke in 
connection with the transmission of the New Testament 
Greek were made by the scribes engaged in copying the 
Vulgate, but the peculiar relation in which our Vulgate 
stood to the old Latin Version—in some books identical 
with it; in others differing to a slight extent ; in others 
offering an independent translation—led to a strange mixture 
of texts. From sheer familiarity with the words of the older 
version, the transcribers of the Vulgate wrote down its words 
instead of those of St. Jerome ; and, on the other hand, a 
copyist of the Old Latin would introduce into its text some 
improved renderings of the Vulgate. Another fertile source 
of corruptions should also be mentioned here. It consisted 
in the lack of critical sense in most of the transcribers and 
owners of MSS. during the Middle Ages: time and again 
they inserted in their copies of Holy Writ glosses drawn 
from other MSS., from parallel passages, from the sacred 
liturgy, from the writings of St. Jerome, or even of Josephus,’ 
and thought that they had thereby secured what they were 
pleased to call “ pleniores codices,” while they had simply 
added to the corruptions already existing. 

As time went on, and the variations and corruptions of 
the MSS. were perpetuated and increased, the need of a 
revised edition was felt more and more. It was not, how- 
ever, before the end of the eighth century, that serious and 
successful efforts were made to produce a recension of the 
Latin Vulgate. Then it was that the great emperor, Charle- 
magne, called to France, Alcuin of York, the most distin- 


1 See in this connection the passage of Roger Bacon (+ ab. 1292) quoted by TROCHON, 
loc. cit., p. 435, footn. 15. 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. Bot 


guished scholar of the day, and intrusted to him the hard 
work of revising the Latin Text. This Alcuin did, using 
for the purpose the various families of text current at the 
time, and on Christmas day of the year 8or, he offered to 
the prince a copy of the corrected Vulgate.’ Almost simul- 
taneously with Alcuin, Theodulph, Bishop of Orleans (f 821) 
carried out also a revision of the Latin Version and _ chiefly 
used for the purpose Spanish MSS. Im spite of these two 
recensions, the first of which had been made with consider- 
able critical skill and with the patronage of the emperor, the 
text of the Vulgate soon needed again a new recension, and 
it may be said that the history of the Latin Version during 
the following centuries “ is the history of successive attempts 
to revise and correct it, and of successive decadences after 
each revision.” * Of these various recensions the best known 
are those of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury (f 1089), 
of St. Stephen, Abbot of Citeaux (f 1134), and of Cardinal 
Nicolas (f 1150). 

At the beginning of the thirteenth century a new method 
to secure more correct copies of the Bible was resorted to. 
Then it was that different corporations (universities, religious 
orders, etc.) began to publish “fanorthote or Correctoria 
Biblica, in which various readings drawn from the MSS., the 
writings of the Fathers, etc., were mentioned and discussed. 
Such were the Correctorium Sorbonicum, the Correctorium 
Parisiense (also called “‘ Senonense,” because approved by 
the Archbishop of Sens), the Correctorium of the Dominicans 
drawn up by Hugo a S. Caro (f 1263) and shortly after re- 
placed by another, and that of the Franciscans. ‘These were 
indeed valuable guides to transcribers of Holy Writ during 
the Middle Ages, but as none of them ever acquired sufficient 

1 Alcuin’s recension did not contain the celebrated text of the three heavenly witnesses 


in I John v. 
2 Kenyon, loc. cit., p. 176. 


332 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


authority to supplant its rivals, the various Correctoria sim- 
ply produced so many distinct families of MSS.’ 

It is true that the discovery of the art of printing supplied 
the long desired means of obtaining uniform and authorita- 
tive copies of the Vulgate. But it is true, also, that lack of 
critical skill, desire of multiplying editions, of the Bible, etc., 
betrayed the editors of the fifteenth century into publishing 
manuscripts of the sacred text irrespectively of their origin 
and value. Hence it came to pass that the numerous printed 
editions which appeared before the year 1500,’ instead of 
remedying, simply made more generally known the varia- 
tions and corruptions which had gradually crept into the | 
Latin Version, especially when editions were furnished with 
various readings, and editors complained in their prefaces 
of the inaccuracy of the text as it existed in MSS. Still 
less conducive to textual uniformity were the critical editions 
prepared and published by Ximenes, Erasmus and Rob. 
Stephens, and more particularly the entirely new translations 
directly made from the originals, not only by Protestants, 
such as Osiander, Miinster, and Castalio, but also by Cath- 
olics, among whom we may mention Xantes Pagninus, 
Card. Cajetan and Erasmus, 

The foregoing remarks enable us to understand fully the 


1The principal MSS. of the Latin Vulgate are (1) the A sdzatinus Codex, formerly 
in the Convent of Monte Amiata, near Siena, and now in the Laurentian Library, 
at Florence; it was written in the beginning of the eighth century ; (2) the Voletanus 
Codex, in Toledo (Spain), written in Gothic letters about the eighth century; (3), the 
Paulinus, or Carolinus Codex, of the ninth century, and which follows the recension of 
Alcuin; (4) the Vadlicellanius Codex (ninth century), in the Victor Emmanuel Library, 
at Rome ; (5) the Cavezszs Codex, thus named from the monastery of La Cava, near 
Salerno (ninth century), and containing a Spanish text. The other MSS. more particu 
larly worthy of mention, though containing only the Gospels, are the //denszs (written 
in 546) and the Lindisfarne Gospels (end of seventh century), etc. (Cfr. the long 
list of MSS. given in Scrivener, Plain Introduction to Textual Criticism, vol. ii, 
p. 67, sqq.) 

2 These early editions were over sixty in number. Cfr. CorNELy, Introductio 
Generalis, p. 439, note 1. It seems that the Vulgate was the first book printed in 
Europe, and that it was issued by Gutenberg in 1456, 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. 333 


object which the Fathers of Trent had in view when they 
prepared their solemn decree concerning the Latin Vulgate. 
They knew of the many Latin editions, some of them anony- 
mous, or even heretical, which circulated freely at the time, 
and of the growing confusion naturally consequent on their 
public use. They knew likewise of the many defects to be 
found in all the extant MSS. and current editions of the 
Vulgate, and they resolved to put an end to what they justly 
considered as “ abuses,” by declaring which of the existing 
Latin versions was the translation approved by the Church, 
and by intrusting to the Holy See the preparation of a 
correct edition of the same.’ The Latin Version which they 
selected was, of course, the old Latin Vulgate, and they 
proclaimed it the officia] text of the Church in the following 
terms: ‘The Holy Council, considering that no small profit 
would accrue to the Church of God if it be made known 
which of all the Latin editions of the sacred books in actual 
circulation is to be esteemed authentic, ordains and declares 
that the same (A@c zfsa) old and Vulgate edition which has 
been approved by the long use of so many ages in the 
Church itself, is to be held for authentic in public readings, 
discourses and disputes, and that nobody may dare or pre- 
sume to reject it on any pretence ”’ (Concil. Trid. Canones ct 
Decreta, Sess. IV, Decretum de Editione et Usu Sacrorum 
Librorum). 

When this decree is studied in the light of the discussions 
preparatory to its framing and publication, it is clear that 
the “authenticity” ascribed therein to the Latin Vulgate 
does not refer to its conformity with the original texts, for 
the term is used by the Fathers of Trent in a sense which, 
according to them, could be applied to an authorized edition 


1Cfr. the interesting discussions recorded in the Acta Genuina SS. CEcumenici 
Concilii Tridentini, published by A. TueEtner, vol. i, pp. 60-65, 79-83. - 


334 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


of the original text itself:' the Vulgate is therefore an 
‘authentic version of Holy Writ in the sense (1) that the 
Council has approved its text and enjoined its use in 
public readings, discourses and disputes,’ and (2) that, 
as we learn from some theologians of the Council, it contains 
nothing from which erroneous doctrinal and moral teach- 
ings could be inferred. It is clear, also, that the Council of 
Trent, while declaring the Latin Vulgate the “ authentic” 
version of the Church, does not intend to depreciate the 
Hebrew Text, or the Septuagint translation, or even the 
other Catholic translations made up to that time; it simply 
selects out of the many Latin versions actually in circula- 
lation, one which is judged better for its purpose, and ex- 
plicitly and repeatedly declares in the meetings held for the 
framing of the decree, that the other versions shall preserve 
their individual value.* Finally, it is beyond doubt that 
when the Fathers of Trent decree that the Latin Vulgate “ is 
to be held for authentic in public readings, discourses and 
disputes, and that nobody may dare or presume to reject it 
on any pretence,” they do not intend to forbid absolutely 
the use of other translations, or of the originals of Holy 
Writ, for their declarations in their meetings prove that 
they are fully aware that these also are useful means of 
getting at the true meaning of God’s Word, 3 and the Jesuit 
Salmeron, one of the leading theologians of the Council, 
says explicitly: ‘ Licebit itaque nobis salva Concilii aucto- 
ritate sive greci sive hebrzi exemplaris lectionem variam 


1“ Rogantur an placeret haberi unam editionem veterem et vulgatam in unoquoque 
idiomate, greco scilicet, hebrzo et latino, qua omnes utantur pro authentica in publicis 
lectionibus, disputationibus. . . .”” (Acta Genuina, loc. cit., p. 83.) : 

2 Cfr. Acta Genuina, Joc. cit., pp. 79-83. The Jesuit SALMERON, and the Franciscan 
VeGA, two theologians of the Council, have also affirmed positively that this was the 
mind of the Fathers of Trent ; their words are given by CorNELY, Introductio Generalis, 
PP. 445-446. 

3 Cfr., for instance, the declaration of the Bishop of Clermont, “alizque editiones, 
quatenus juvare possunt, etiam admittantur ’’ (Acta Genuina, vol. i, p. 81). 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. 335 


producere eamque ut verum Bibliorum textum expendere et 
enatrare, nec tantum mores per eam edificare, verum etiam 
fidei dogmata comprobare atque stabilire atque adeo sumere ab 
illis eficax argumentum tanquam ex textu S. Scriptura.”’ 
If, therefore, the public use of any other version was so 
strictly forbidden by the Council, it was particularly in order 
to do away with the confusion which was the outcome of a 
multiplicity of translations, and to discourage effectively the 
mania then prevalent for making new versions of Holy 
Writ. Lastly, when the Fathers of Trent decreed “that no- 
body may dare or presume to reject the official version on 
any pretence,” they simply wanted thereby to declare emphat- 
ically that the Latin Vulgate was disfigured by no error from 
which doctrine opposed to right belief and conduct could 
be inferred. That such is the.correct interpretation of the 
last part of the Tridentine decree is proved by a careful 
study of the Genuine Acts of the Council, and also—and in- 
deed more explicitly—by the declaration of Vega, one of its 
theologians, who, some twenty years after the close of the 
Council, wrote as follows: ‘‘In honorem vetustatis et hono- 
ris, quem ei (i. e. Vulgatae) quam a multis annis detulerant 
Concilia latina, que ea sunt usa, et ut certo scirent fideles, 
quod et verissimum est xulum inde haberi perniciosum 
errorem et tuto illam et citra periculum posse legit, ad coer- 
cendam etiam confusionem quam affert multitudo translationum, 
et ad temperandam licentiam nimiam cudendi semper novas 
translationes sayenter statuit (Synodus) ut ista uteremur in 
publicis  lectionibus, disputationibus et expositionibus. 
Atque eatenus voluit cam authenticam haberi, ut certum omnti- 
bus esset, nullo cam fedatam esse errore, ex guo perniciosum 
aliguod dogma in fide et moribus colligi posset, atque ideo 
statuit, ne quis illam quovis pretextu rejicere auderet. Et 


1 Salmeron’s words are quoted in CornELY, loc, cit., p. 443; cfr. also ViGouROUX, 
Manuel Biblique, vol. i, n. 142. 


336 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


hanc fuisse mentem Synodi megue guidguam amplius statuere 
voluisse ex verbis ipsis et ex aliis consuetis approbationibus 
Concilil potes colliperegem- a. 

While the Latin Vulgate was thus proclaimed at Trent as 
the official and approved version of the Church, no special 
edition of it was as yet declared the standard text to which all 
copies should henceforth conform. ‘To supply such a stand- 
ard, the Fathers of the Council relied chiefly on the Holy 
See, and thought, in fact, that the work could be completed 
even before they dispersed, so that they would have an op- 
portunity to approve it themselves.” Apparently they real- 
ized but imperfectly the amount and difficulty of the work 
which was required to produce such “ very careful and correct 
edition of the Latin Vulgate,” as they desired. In point of 
fact, about thirty years elapsed after the conclusion of the 
Council before any authorized edition of the Vulgate was 
given to the public. Meantime, revised editions of it ap- 
peared, two of which deserve especial mention, viz., that 
published by the Dominican, Henten, in 1547, which was 
reprinted several times, and that of Lucas of Bruges (a crit- 
ical recension of the preceding), which appeared in 1583, 
and was of the greatest use to the Roman revisers of the 
Latin Vulgate. . 

It would be too long to detail here the manner in which 
Popes Julius III (f 1555), Pius IV (f 1565), and Gregory 
XIII (fF 1585), set on foot or co-operated in the great work 
of revision desired by the Council of Trent. Suffice it to 
say that the last-named Pontiff contributed powerfully to- 
wards it by appointing a commission presided over by Car- 


' Cfr. CoRNELY, loc. cit., p. 445,8q. For further information about the real bearing 
of this decree of Trent, see beside the authors already referred to, Trocuon, Introduc- 
tion Générale; The Catholic Dictionary, art. Vulgate, p. 856, sqq.; BREEN, Introduc- 
tion to Holy Scripture, p. 538, sq.; Loisy, Histoire du Canon du Nouveau Testa: 
ment, p. 250, sqq., etc. 

2 Cfr. Analecta Juris Pontificii, livraison 28, col. ror3. 


THE ANCIENT LATIN VERSIONS. a3 


dinal Carafa, and among the members of which were reck- 
oned such able scholars as Laelius Landus, Bellarmin, Agellius, 
P. Morinus, Valverde and W. Allen. It was, however, only un- 
der Gregory’s successor, Sixtus V (who ascended the Papal 
throne April the 24th, 1585), that the members of this commis- 
sion worked very actively at the great task set before them. 
They had at their disposal some of the best MSS. above 
mentioned,’ and their method of work was certainly worthy 
of praise. Leelius collated the MSS.; Agellius compared 
doubtful passages with the Hebrew and the LXX; and the 
result of their work was read and discussed before the com- 
mission. The text corrected by the commission was revised 
by Sixtus V himself, who unfortunately followed principles 
of correction which differed considerably from those of the 
revisers, and who in various other ways gave them offence. 
In 1590 Sixtus V issued his edition of the Latin Vulgate, 
prefixing to it the constitution ‘ A‘ternus Ille,” in which he or- 
dered it to be used in all discussions, public and private, and 
to be received as “true, lawful, authentic and unques- 
tioned.” He also forbade expressly the publication of vari- 
ous readings in copies of the Vulgate, and declared that all 
readings in other editions and MSS. which vary from 
those of his revised text “ are to have no credit or authority 
for the future.” ” 

Had the life of Sixtus V been prolonged after this act of 
vigor and authority, there is hardly any doubt that he would 
have gradually overcome the general dissatisfaction which 
the preparation and publication of his edition had caused. 
But he died in August, 1590, and those whom he had 
alarmed or offended took immediate measures to procure 


YFor details, see VERCELLONE, Essay on the Correction of the Vulgate, in Analecta 
Juris Pontificii, livraison 28th, col. 1015, sqq. 

2 The Bull “ ternus Ille,’’ which bears the impress of the strong but somewhat over- 
bearing temper of Sixtus V, is given zz extenso in CORNELY, Introductio Generalis. pp 
465-474- 

22 


338 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


the publication of a new edition. During the very brief 
pontificate of Urban VII (it lasted only ten days) nothing of 
course could be done. On the accession of Gregory XIV 
some expressed the wish that the edition of Sixtus V should 
be prohibited ; but such an extreme measure was justly dis- 
regarded. According to the suggestion of Bellarmin, a re- 
vision of the work of Sixtus V was undertaken, and was 
ultimately published in the same size and. print and with 
the same title as the former: “ Biblia Sacra Vulgate edi- 
tionis, Sixti V, Pontificis Maximi jussu recognita et edita.” 
It is only in 1641 that the name of Clement VIII, under 
whose pontificate this revised edition appeared, began to be 
mentioned in the title of the authorized Vulgate. The dif- 
ferences of the two editions are numerous (some 4,000 in 
number), and it appears that at times rather serious changes 
were introduced into the latter.’ 

Of the recent critical labors undertaken with a view to pre- 
pare a more Satisfactory text of the great work of St. Jerome 
we can only mention here, (1) the two volumes of “ Varize 
Lectiones Vulg. Lat. Bibliorum editionis,” published by C. 
VERCELLONE, and which comprise only Genesis—IV Kings ; 
(2) Bp. WorpswortH, Novum Testamentum D. N. Jesu 
Christi secundum editionem Sancti Hieronymi; and (3) 
PETER CorssEN, Epistula ad Galatas, etc. 


1 Vercellone has maintained that some of these changes are connected with dogmatic 
passages. 


SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER XV. 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. 





if 1, Anglo-Saxon: Work of Cedmon; Guthlac; St. 
Aldhelm ; Ven. Bede; King Alfred, etc. 
EARLY 
2. Early English: Metrical paraphrases; prose ver- 
TRANSLATIONS : sions of the Psalms; Work of Wycliffe. 
( The translators: their qualifica- 
tions for their work. 
1. The Douay | The translation: method, critical 
and literary value. 
Le Version 4 Chalioner’s revision 
Principal | (1749). 
CATHOLIC (1582, 1609) : Troy’s Bible (1783). 





revisions: | Editions since Troy’s 
VERSIONS: bible. 
2. Other translations of the New Testament (Nary’s; 
Witham’s ; Lingard’s; Spencer’s). 


3. Kenrick’s Bible: (aim; text; annotations). 


1. Translations anterior to the Authorized Version 
(the translators, value of their work). 


Part of James I in its production. 
2. The Author- | The six companies of translators 
(their proceedings). 


ized Version ne revision and publication of 
the work. 
TI. (2611): Its value (literary, critical and 
dogmatic). 
PROTESTANT 
English How prepared. 
TRANSLATIONS : | Ratton ‘ 
Reception and 
81, 1885) value. 
3. The Revised | Mie a lal GPa) ee 
toca | 
Sahn ek American Distinct purpose. 
Edition 
(1900, 1901). ( Leading features. 


300 


CHAPTER XV. 
THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. 
§ 1. Larly Translations. 


1. Anglo-Saxon Translations. It was naturally 
from the Latin Bible, which had been carried into England 
by Roman and Irish missionaries, that the first Anglo-Saxon 
translations were made. The earliest production of the 
kind is ascribed to Caedmon (f 680), a monk of Whitby, in 
Northumbria, to whose memory Ven. Bede has devoted a 
whole chapter of his /Zestoria Leclesiastica gentis Anglorum.' 
His work is less a translation proper than a metrical para- 
phrase of the book of Genesis and of several historical parts 
of the Old and the New Testaments, and it has come down 
to us only ina fragmentary form. Soon after him, about 
the close of the seventh century, Guthlac, the first Anglo- 
Saxon hermit, ‘“‘ having one of the Psalters brought from 
Rome, wrote in it an interlinear Saxon translation which is 
still preserved in the British Museum; and not long after, 
about 706, Aldhelm (Bishop of Sherborne) made another 
Saxon translation of the Psalms, the first fifty of them in 
prose, the rest in poetical form.” ? 

The next translator of whom we hear is the Venerable 
Bede (ft 735), who wrote Latin commentaries on several 
books of the Bible and to whom some ascribe a translation 

1 Book iv, chap. xxiv. Cfr. MIGNE, Patr. Lat., vol. xcv, cols. 212-215. 

2 Jn. W. BEARDSLEE, The Bible among the Nations, p. 137. It is not quite certain, 
however, that the sole MS. containing the Psalter, ascribed to St. Aldhelm, reproduces 
faithfully the work of the holy bishop (cfr. Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient 


MSS., p. 190, sq.). 
340 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. 341 


of the entire Bible. He is also represented by one of his 
disciples as completing his version of the Gospel of St. 
John the very day of his death. On the morning of the 
feast of the Ascension, we are told, one chapter alone 
remained unfinished, and his young amanuensis hesitated to 
press further his dying master. But Bede would not rest 
till he had completed his work. Failing strength and the 
last farewells to the brethren of the monastery of Jarrow 
prolonged the task till the evening, when the youth reminded 
his master: “‘ There is-yet one sentence unwritten, dea 
master. "Write it quickly,” said “the Saint; and‘ it was 
written under his dictation. ‘It is finished now,” said the 
scribe. ‘ You spoke the truth,” replied Bede, “ it is finished 
now ;” and he died lying on the pavement of his cell, and 
repeating the words of the doxology, ‘Glory be to the 
Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.” 

No copy of Bede’s translation survives ; and this is also 
the case with the version of Holy Writ ascribed to the great, 
statesman, King Alfred (f{ 901). Careful for the moral 
and intellectual welfare of his people, this Saxon monarch 
placed at the head of his own code of laws a translation of 
the ten commandments and other extracts from the law of 
Moses, and William of Malmesbury tells us that he was en- 
gaged on a version of the Psalms at the time of his death. 
‘In point of fact, a MS. now in the British Museum, and 
containing the Latin Text with an interlinear Anglo- 
Saxon translation, has borne the name of King Alfred’s 
Psalter. 

In the tenth century we meet with two forms of versions 
of the Gospels. The earlier in date is also an interlinear 
translation of the Latin Text, and it has come down to us in 
those copies which are known under the names of the ook 
of Durham or Gospels of St. Cuthbert, and the Rushworth 
Gloss, thus called from one of its first owners. ‘The other 


342 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


form, somewhat later in date, presents the Anglo-Saxon 
Version of the Gospels by itself, apart from the Latin Text on 
which it was based, and is now extant in six copies, the old- 
est of which, written about the year 1ooo, is found in the 
library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.’ 

The last Anglo-Saxon translation of Holy Writ to be men: 
tioned here, is of more considerable extent than the preced: 
ing. It is ascribed to Afric, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
and is a paraphrase in popular form of the //eptateuch (i.e. 
of the Pentateuch, Josue and Judges), and of the other his- 
torical books (Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, Esther, Job, 
Judith and the Machabees).* ‘Two copies of this version 
are known, at Oxford and in the British Museum.” 3 


2. Early English Translations. The work of 
Bible translation naturally received a check during the 
confusion which accompanied the Norman _ conquest. 
Gradually, however, as the intermixture of Norman and 
Anglo-Saxon went on, and the early English became de- 
veloped, metrical paraphrases of portions of Holy Writ 
were composed. The best known among them are the 
Ormulum, thus called from its author, Orm, an English 
Augustinian monk, and containing verses on the Gospels 
and Acts, and the Sozw/ehele or Salus Animee, which, along 
with other religious poetry, contains a metrical version of 
the leading facts of both Testaments. 

In the following century (the fourteenth), two prose ver- 
sions of the Psalms deserve especial notice. They appeared 


1 Here is a specimen of the form of language in which this old version of the Gospels 
was written. After quoting the first words of St. Mark’s Gospel in Latin, the translation 
begins thus: ‘‘ Her ys Godspelles angin, halendes Cristes Godes sune. Swa awriten 
ys on thaswitegan bec Isaiam. Nuic asende mine zngel beforan thinre ansyne. Se 
gegarewath thinne weg beforan the. Clepigende stefen on tham westene gegarwiath 
drithnes weg. » Doth rihte his sythas. Johannes wes on westene fulgende and bodiende. 
Dedbote fulwyht on svnna forgyfenysse.”’ 

2 Alfric omitted such passages as seemed to him of minor importance. 

8. KENnyoN, loc, cit., p. 195. 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. 343 


about the same time, and were written, the one by William 
of SHOREHAM, Vicar of Chart Sutton, near Leeds (Kent), and 
the other by Richard Route, a hermit of Hampole, about 
four miles from Doncaster. We give a specimen of the 
version of William of Shoreham as illustrating the progress 
of the English language, about the year 1320. Psalm the 
55th begins as follows: ‘ Have mercy on me, God, for man 
hath defouled me. The fende trubled me, feghtand alday 
oghayns me. Myn enemys defouled me alday, for many 
were feghtand oghains me. I shal dred the fram the heght 
of the daye; I for sothe shal hope in the. Hii shal hery 
my wordes, what manes flesshe doth to me. Alday the 
wicked accurseden my wordes oghains me ; alle her thoutes 
ben in ivel.” 

In the version of Rolle, a commentary, in which the her- 
mit of Hampole “follows holy Doctors and reason,” accom- 
panies each sentence of the translation. His version of the 
Psalter, like that of William of Shoreham, can be read with 
comparative ease at the present day. Here is its beginning 
of Ps. xxii: ‘“ Lord gouerns me and nathynge sall me want: 
in sted of pasture thare he me sett. On the watere of 
rehetynge (refreshing) forth he me broght: my saule he 
turnyd. He led me on the stretis of rightwisness: for his 
name. ffor whi, if I had gane in myddis of the shadow of 
ded: I sall not dred illes, for thou ert with me. ... ”’? 

The short account thus far given of the early English 
translations shows clearly, that if the whole Bible was ren- 
dered into the vernacular before the time of Wycliffe (1324-- 
1384) no positive proof of it, in the shape of extant MSS., 
or otherwise, can be brought forth. It is not therefore sur- 
prising to find, that, despite the affirmation of Sir Thos. 
More (f 1535) to the contrary, most writers of the present 


1 As Rolle’s version exists now in copies which differ considerably from one another, 
it is impossible to say which represents best the primitive renderings. 


344 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


day consider it very improbable that such a translation was 
made before this celebrated forerunner of Protestantism." 
Of the precise share of John Wycliffe in the production 
of a complete version of Holy Writ it is impossible to speak 
with confidence at the present day, seeing that ‘half the 
English religious tracts of the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 
turies have been assigned to him in the absence of all exter- 
nal, and in defiance of all internal, evidence,”’? 
legends or fantastic pictures have becn mixed with sober 
history in connection with the composition and spread of the 
Wycliffite Bible. The true facts of the case are most likely 
as follows: “The New Testament was first finished, about 


and that mere 


the year 1380; and in 1382, or soon afterwards, the version 
of the entire Bible was completed. Wycliffe was now rector 
of Lutterworth in Leicestershire, living mainly in his parish, 
but keeping constantly in touch with Oxford and London. 
Other scholars assisted him in his work, and we have no 
certain means of knowing how much of the translation was 
actually done by himself. ‘The New Testament is attributed 
to him, but we cannot say with certainty that it was entirely his 
own work. The greater part of the Old Testament was cer- 
tainly translated by Nicholas Hereford, one of Wycliffe’s most 
ardent supporters at Oxford. The MS. now in the Bodleian 
library at Oxford breaks off quite abruptly at Baruch iii, 20, 
in the middle of the sentence, andit is evident that Hereford 
carried on the work no further; for another MS. at Oxford, 
copied from it, ends at the same place and contains a con- 
temporary note assigning the work to Hereford. It may be 
supposed that this sudden break marks the time of Here- 
ford’s summons to London in 1382, to answer for his opin- 

1 Jn connection with this point, see especially JN. H. Brunt, A Key to the Knowl- 
edge and Use of the Holy Bible, p. 19, sq.; Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient MSS., 


. p.198, sq.3 F. A. GAsquet, The Pre-Reformation English Bible, in The Dublin Review 


July, 1894, pp. 126, 140, sqq. 
2 SHIRLEY, Fasciculus Zizaniorum, quoted by Gasquet, loc. cit., p. 125. 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. 345 


ions, which resulted in his excommunication and retirement 
from England. . . . After Hereford’s departure the transla- 
tion of the Old Testament was continued by Wycliffe himself 
or his assistants, and so the entire Bible was complete in its 
English dress before the death of Wycliffe in 1384.” 

It is this composite character of the Wycliffite Bible which 
accounts for the great difference in style which is noticeable 
between the two main parts of which it is made up: while 
Wycliffe’s part is characterized by a robust, terse, popular 
and homely diction, that ascribed to Hereford is somewhat 
more polished and oftentimes quaint. Likely enough this 
strong contrast between Wycliffe and his co-workers led soon 
to a revision, which, as is commonly admitted, was carried 
out by John Purvey, one of the most intimate friends of 
Wycliffe and a sharer in the condemnation of Hereford. 
At any rate, Purvey’s revision, made about 1388, gradually 
supplanted the primitive version, and became the recognized 
form under which the Wycliffe Bible circulated freely * during 
the fifteenth century. 


§ 2. The Catholic Versions. 


I. The Douay Version. It was only natural that those 
who embraced the Protestant Reformation should endeavor 
to produce vernacular translations, derived no longer, as were 
all the versions of preceding ages, from the Latin Bible, but 
from the original Hebrew and Greek, in order that these 
new translations might be pointed out as the true expression 
of the written Word of God, the supreme rule of faith. 
Moreover, all such versions would furnish their authors with 
an excellent means of spreading their heretical views. We 


1 Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient MSS., p. 200, sq. 

2 Fr. GASQUET, in his article already referred to on The Pre-Reformation English 
Bible, proves conclusively that the hostility of the English bishops to an English Bible 
has been much exaggerated. (See The Dublin Review, for July, 1894, p. 133, sqq.) 


346 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


are not therefore surprised to find that the first to succeed 
Wycliffe in the work of translating Holy Writ into English 
should have been men of comparatively little ability and of 
more or less doubtful character,’ but violent enemies of the 
Church of Rome from which they had apostatized, and 
ardent propagators of Protestantism. They are justly con- 
sidered as “the true fathers of the English (Protestant) 
Bible,” so that the history of their work is an integrant part 
of the history of the Protestant translations, which forms 
the subject-matter of the next paragraph. Leaving therefore 
aside, for the time being, the study of these first Protestant 
versions, we shall speak at once of the Douay Version, which 
was put forth for the purpose of counteracting “their poison- 
ous effect upon the people under color of divine authority.” 

This Catholic translation derives its name from the French 
town of Douay, where, through the exertions of William 
Allen, an English Catholic college had been founded with 
the object of organizing missionary work in Protestant 
England. In consequence of the political troubles of 
Flanders, the college was removed, in 1578, to Rheims, for 
a time, and it is in this latter town that the Catholic trans- 
lators of the Bible printed, in 1582, the first part of their 
work, the New Testament, which bears sometimes on that 
account, the name of the Rheims Testament.” The Old 
Testament was published in Douay, only in 1609-1610 (two 
vols. in 4to), although the translation had been prepared 
many years previously, the delay being occasioned, as the 


1 Thus are they described by the Protestant BLuNT, in his Key to the Knowledge 
and Use of the Holy Bible, p. 24. 

2 The New Testament appeared in 1582,in4to. Its title page reads as follows > 
“The New Testament of Jesus Christ, translated faithfully into English out of the Au- 
thentic Latin, according to the best copies uf the same, diligently conferred with the 
Greeke and other editions in divers languages, with Argaments of bookes and chapters, 
Annotations and other necessary helpes, for the better understanding of the text, and 
especially for the discoverie of the Corraftions of divers late translations, ard for cleer- 
ing the controversies in religion of these daies; Jz the En lish College of Rhemes. . . 
Printed at Rhemes by John Fogny, 1582, Cum Privilegio.”’ 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. 347 


translators put it, “by lack of good meanes” and because 
‘‘of our poor estate in banishment.” ' 

There is no doubt that the authors of the Douay Version 
were all men of learning, and well qualified to render into 
English the Word of God. Besides Dr. Allen, who, in Mary’s 
reign, was principal of St. Mary’s Hall (Oxford) and canon 
of York, the scholars chiefly concerned in the translation 
were (1) Dr. Gregory Martin, fellow of St. John’s College 
(Oxford), who was reputed the best Hebrew and Greck 
scholar of his college,” and of whom Antony Wood, in his 
Athene Oxonienses, speaks as “an excellent linguist exactly 
read and versed in the Sacred Scriptures, and went beyond 
all of his time in humane literature;”3 (2) Dr. Richard 
Bristow, fellow of Exeter College (Oxford); (3) John Rey- 
nolds, of New College, who filled the chair of Hebrew at 
Rheims; (4) and finally, Dr. Thomas Worthington, also an 
Oxford man, and afterwards president of the Seminary at 
Rheims. 

In their long preface to the New Testament the translators, 
after having given as their purpose, that of “‘ opposing a 
Catholic version to heretical ones,” state their reasons for 
preferring the Latin Vulgate tothe common Greek Text, and 
the principal of which are the following: Its antiquity ; its 
use by the Fathers and in the liturgy; its authenticity pro: 
claimed by the Council of Trent; its exactness and preci 
sion, etc. Next, they expose the method which they 
followed in rendering the Latin Text. They aimed at a pre: 
cise and close rendering of the Vulgate, but added at times 
in the margin Greek or Latin words of special difficulty or im: 


1 The title page of the Old Testament is worded in the same manner as that of the 
New Testament, except as regards the place and date of printing. The expression “ac- 
cording to the best copies of the same ”’ is omitted, because by this time (1609-1610), the 
standard text of the Latin Vulgate had been fixed by the Holy See. 

2 Thetranslation itself of both ‘Testaments was the work of Gregory Martin; the rest 
simply revised his renderings or added the notes. 

3 The text of Wood is quoted by JN. SrouGHTon, Our English Bible, p. 226, sq. 


348 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


port, or even another reading, especially when the Greek was 
agreeable to the same. ‘They sometimes also translated the 
word in the margin of their Latin MSS. instead of the word 
found in the text when the latter was manifestly faulty. 

In their preface to the Old Testament, the editors’ give 
likewise reasons for translating the Latin Vulgate rather 
than the originals. ‘They state that the version having been 
made about thirty years ago by able and sincere men, only 
a few modifications, unimportant from the point of view of 
controversy, have been made to their work, and this to con- 
form it tothe most perfect Latin edition (the Clementine edi- 
tion of 1592). Finally, they affirm that throughout the transla- 
tion there prevails a perfect sincerity of renderings “ nothing 
being here either untruly or obscurely done of purpose in 
favour of the Catholike Roman religion, so that we cannot but 
complaine and challenge English Protestants for corrupting 
the text . . . which they profess to translate.” 

It is plain, therefore, from their own statements, as indeed 
from the very nature of their work, that the authors of the 
Douay Version did not intend to put forth a translation of 
Holy Writ that would have a special critical value. Had 
this been their aim, they would not have been satisfied with 
rendering into English a Latin Text, but would have natu- 
rally gone back to the original Hebrew and Greek, for any 
version made from another can hardly ever supply readings 
of greater value in Textual Criticism than those of the trans- 
lation from which it is derived. It must be said, however, 
that since the Douay Version was made very closely from 
Latin MSS. or editions of the sixteenth century, anterior to 
the official text published by the Popes Sixtus V and Cle- 
ment VIII, it may and does point in several cases to Latin 


1 The chief translators Allen (¢ 1594) and Gregory Martin (1 1582) died before the 
first volume of the Old Testament appeared in 1609, 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. 349 


readings no longer found in our editions of the Latin Vulgate 
and thereby helps us to improve their text. 

From a literary standpoint, the primitive Douay Bible rec- 
ommends itself by several happy features, as a translation. 
One of these is the uniformity of the renderings. The 
words Amen, Rabbi, charity, multitude, work, etc., are uni- 
formly used, while the Authorized Version, for instance, is 
frequently marred by unnecessary and inconsistent diversity 
of renderings of the same word in the original.' A second 
praiseworthy quality is the remarkable discernment in using 
the definite article. As the Latin language lacks it, it might 
be expected that, of all English modern translations, the 
Douay would be least accurate in this respect. The very 
reverse is actually the case.’ In the third place, the transla- 
tor’s care strictly to follow the text before him, often led to 
happy results, the preservation of a significant phrase of the 
original, cr of an impressive arrangement of words. Card. 
Wiseman affirms that “though one of the revisers of the 
Douay Version, Dr. Challoner, did well to alter many too 
decided Latinisms which the old translators had retained, he 
weakened the language considerably by destroying inversion 
where it was congenial at once to the genius of the language 
and|to the; constmteuomeo: thecoriginal,. ... 7%" “lo this 
same care of the translators to render exactly their Latin 
Text is probably due the introduction of many Latin words 
into English, with which everybody is now familiar, as for 
instance, the terms acquisition, victim, gratis, adulterate, 
advent, etc.“ Of course, numerous felicitous renderings of 
a genuine Saxon ring might be quoted, and in point of fact 
many words and entire sentences were found so good in the 


1 J. 1. Mompert, A Handbook of the English Versions of the Bible, p. 307. 
2 W. F. Mouton, The History of the English Bible, p. 187, sq. 

2 Essays on Various Subjects, vol. i, p. 75 (London and Baltimore, 8vo, 1853). 
* W. F. MouttTon, loc. cit., p. 186. 


350 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Rheims Testament, that they were simply embodied in the 
Authorized Version.’ ‘The last, and perhaps most commend- 
able feature of the Douay Bible to be mentioned here, is its 
scrupulous fidelity. “In justice,’ writes’ Serivener, *“it 
must be observed that no case of wilful perversion of Scrip- 
ture has ever been brought home to the Rhemish trans- 
lators.” ” 

Unfortunately, this desire of abiding by the text before 
them prevented the authors of the Douay Version from 
utilizing the Hebrew and Greek texts to the extent to which 
this would have been at times desirable to catch the exact 
meaning of the Latin translation.s It betrayed them also 
into a literalness of rendering which is oftentimes extreme,‘ 
and into the preservation of Latin words and expressions 
that really need a translation.’ 

It is clear, therefore, that this distinctly Catholic Version 
of Holy Writ had many features to commend it to the esteem 
and love of the faithful at large, and it is not surprising to 
find that, despite its bulky appearance, it was well received 
at the time and soon reprinted ® with but slight alterations. 
But of course its great defect of excessive literalness, joined 
to the inconvenience of its size, and to the gradual changes 

1 For examples, see MomseErtT, loc. cit., p. 306. 

2 The text of ScRIVENER is quoted by Corton, Rhemes and Douay, p. 156. 

3 Card. WISEMAN, loc. cit., p. 79, sqq., shows clearly how necessary it is to go back 
to the originals to make out the exact meaning of the Latin Version. 

4 Here is one of the worst samples of this defect: “To me, the least of the sainctes, 
is given this grace, among the Gentils to evangelize the unsearchable riches of Christ 
and to illuminate all men what is the dispensation of the sacrament hidden from worlds 
in God, who created all things; that the manifold wisdom of God may be notified to the 
Princes and Potestats in the celestials by the Church according to the prefinition of 
worlds, which he made in Christ Jesus, Our Lord ” (Ephes. iii, 8-11). 

5 As when we read, for instance, of men “ odible to God ” (Rom. i, 30): of Christians 


“made concorporat and comparticipant”’ (Ephes. iii, 6); of Christ, that “ He exin- 
anited Himself?’ etc.; etc. (Cfr. for a long list of such blunders, Momsert, loc. cit., p. 
303.) 

6 This is particularly true of the New Testament, which soon came to a second edition 
in 1600; to a third in 16213 and to a fourth in 1633. Only the edition of 1621 is 16ma 
(cfr. Newman, Tracts Theological and Ecclesiastical, p. 409, sq.). 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. Bar 


introduced into the English language, made it more. and 
more desirable that it should be revised and published in a 
handier form. ‘The first to take up the responsible work of 
revision was Dr. Challoner, the Vicar Apostolic of the Londor 
district, to whom the English Church is so much indebted. 
The first edition of his revision appeared in 1749, and con- 
sisted of the New Testament only (12mo). It professed to 
be “newly revised and corrected according to the Clementine 
edition of the Scriptures,” but gave no manner of informa- 
tion as to the principle, the source or the extent of the altera- 
tions introduced into the old version. Dr. Challoner aimed 
at rendering the text more intelligible, and on that account, 
he substituted modern words and constructions for the old, 
and usual or even familiar expressions for those that were 
obsolete or less known. At times, he adopts the readings of 
the Authorized Version by preference to those of the Douay 
Bible, and he undoubtedly sacrifices force and vividness when 
he dispenses with even the happiest inversions of words.’ 

“ Looking at Dr. Challoner’s labors on the Old Testament 
as a whole, we may pronounce that they issue in little short 
of a new translation. They can as little be said to be made 
on the basis of the Douay, as on the basis of the Protestant 
Version. Of course, there must be a certain resemblance 
between any two Catholic translations whatever, because they 
are both translations of the same Vulgate ; but this connec- 
tion between the Douay and Challoner being allowed for, 
Challoner’s Version is even nearer to the Protestant than it 
is to the Douay; nearer, that is, not in grammatical struc- 
ture, but in phraseology and diction.” ” 

As long as Bp. Challoner lived, no editions were published 
except such as followed his revision. Hardly was he dead, 


1 For details, see NEWMAN, loc. cit., p. 414, sqq. (London edition, Longmans & Co, 
1891). 
2 NEwMaAv, loc. cit., p. 416. 


252 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


when a Dublin priest, named Bernard MacMahon, publishea 
in 1783, a new revision of the New Testament, in 12mo, 
with the formal approbation of his archbishop. ‘This new 
edition was made on the basis of Challoner’s Text, but with 
still more considerable variations from the Rheims Testa- 
ment. Eight years afterwards, on the invitation of Dr. Troy, 
the actual incumbent of the See of Dublin, Fr. MacMahon 
published a revised edition of the whole Bible (in 4to), hence 
the name which it has received, of Dr. Troy’s Bible. This 
gave him an opportunity of introducing numerous changes 
more into the text of the New Testament, but as regards the 
Douay Version of the Old Testament, there is little differ- 
ence between his text and that of Dr. Challoner.’ 

Of the many editions subsequent to Dr. Troy’s Bible, we 
shall simply mention here the four principal types which, 
we think are still current. These are: (1) that of? Dufly, 
Dublin, a reprint of the text of Dr. Murray (published in 
1825); (2) that of Richardson, London, which reproduces 
the edition which appeared in 1847, with the approbation of 
Dr. Walsh, Vicar Apostolic, and Dr. Wiseman, his coad- 
jutor ; (3) that of Dolman, London, practically a reprint of 
the Bible approved by Bp. Denvir in 1839; (4) finally, that 
of Dunigan, New York, published with many high approba- 
tions, apparently copied from the text published by Dr. Hay- 
dock, in 1811." As regards the Old Testament, these 
various editions represent one, and practically only one, 
received text, viz., that of Bp. Challoner, which did not 
undergo any material alterations in the course of the nine- 
teenth century.3 As regards the New Testament, the text 


1 Cfr. NEwMAN, loc. cit., p. 423, sqq. See, also, Rhemes and Douay, by Rev. Henry 
Corton, p. 57, sqq. 

° To these may be added, the edition of Sadlier, New York; and the Haydock’s Bible, 
edited by Dr. Husenbeth. Jor details see NEwMAN, aud CoTTon, Joc. cit. 

® The only exception to this is connected with the work of Archbishop Kenrick, of 
which we shall soon speak. 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. 353 


represented by these same four editions varies much more 
considerably ; ‘ so that, at the present day, there is really no 
one received text of the Rheims Testament among English- 
speaking Catholics. 


2. Other Translations of the New Testament. 
Even before any revision of the Douay Bible was attempted, 
its various defects had been so strongly felt that two Catholic 
priests undertook and carried out an altogether new trans- 
lation of the New Testament. The first of these was Cor- 
nelius Nary, parish priest of St. Michan’s, Dublin, who 
published his work in 1718, with the approbation of four Irish 
divines, of Paris and Dublin. He had done well his duty 
as a faithful interpreter of Holy Writ, and was not without 
hope that his version would gradually take the place of the 
corresponding part in the ancient, bulky and expensive Douay 
Bible.” It does not seem, however, that his work was favor- 
ably received, and, even during his lifetime, a rival trans- 
lation of the New Testament was put forth, which “ attracted 
far more notice on its appearance than Dr. Nary’s had 
obtained.” 3 The author of this new version was Dr. Robert 
Witham, President of the College of Douay since 1714, who 
had openly blamed Nary’s pretension to give a /ifera/ trans- 
lation of the New Testament. His work, published in 1730, 
contained, besides a Preface or Address to the Reader, 
numerous and strong Commendations from Ecclesiastical 
authority, Arguments at the beginning of each Book, and 
Notes, expository, critical and controversial. The’ English 
was modernized, and the translation was superior in many 
ways to that of Dr. Nary. Despite, however, Witham’s high 
position and repute for learning, despite also the convenient 


1 Cfr. NEWMAN, loc. cit., p. 443, sqq. 

2 For his own appreciation of the Douay Version, cfr. the preface to his work, in 
Cotton, Rhemes and Douay, p. 299, sqq. 

8 Corton, loc. cit., p. 44. 


23 


354 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


size of his edition and the real value of his version, a new 
edition of the Douay Bible was published as early as 1738, 
and his work, like that of Fr. Nary, was finally superseded 
by the revision of Dr. Challoner, which appeared in 1749. 

It must be confessed that the fate of these two transla- 
tions of the New Testament was calculated to discourage 
forever attempts at new versions of the sacred text. In 
point of fact, a whole century elapsed before a work of the 
kind was given, and then anonymously, to the public, under 
the title of ““ A New Version of the Four Gospels, with notes 
critical and explanatory, by a Catholic” (London, 1836). 
The author, whose name was soon known, was Dr. John 
Lingard, the celebrated English historian. The translation 
is for the most part from the Greek, although occasionally 
the reading of the Latin Vulgate is adheredto. The notes 
subjoined to each page are highly deserving of attention. 
Dr. Lingard says of them in his Introduction: “ The notes 
which are appended to the text are not of a controversial 
character. Their object is the elucidation of obscure pas- 
sages, or the explication of allusions to national customs, or 
the statement of the reasons which have induced the trans- 
lator to differ occasionally from preceding interpreters.” 
There is no doubt that Lingard’s Version of the Gospels 
must be considered as a scholarly and useful book. Arch- 
bishop Kenrick speaks of the work as “ elegant,’ and of the 
notes as “ few in number, but luminous ”’; ' while Cardinal 
Wiseman * says: ‘“ Throughout the notes and preface, there 
is a drift . . . which has our cordial approbation .. .” 
and ‘“ we take pleasure in bearing witness to the learning, 
diligence, and acuteness of the author.” Nevertheless, the 
confined and partial nature of the new version which com- 


1 The New Testament, by Francis P. Kenrick, 2d edit., Baltimore, 1862. Genera) 
Introduction. 

2 Essay on The Catholic Versions of Scripture written on the occasion of Lingard’s 
Translation. (Essays, vol. i, p. 100.) 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. 355 


prised only the Gospels, together with the hold which the 
Douay Bible had upon the memory of the clergy and laity, 
naturally prevented the translation of Dr. Lingard not only 
from superseding the one then in general circulation, but 
even from being as fully appreciated as it deserved. It must 
also be added, that some of its changes could be, and have 
been in fact, rightly objected to. Thus: “the change of 
‘Christ’ into ‘Messiah,’ and ‘Gospel’ into ‘good tidings,’ 
seems unnecessary, and likely to startle ordinary readers: 
for the rejected words have long become part of the lan- 
guage.” ' 

The latest, and in several respects, the best translation of 
the Gospels, was put forth in 1898, by the Very Rev. Francis 
A. Spencer, O. P., under the title of ‘“ The Four Gospels. 
A new Translation from the Greek direct, with Reference to 
the Vulgate, and the Ancient Syriac Version.” ‘lhe learned 
author follows no single MS. or printed edition of the New 
Testament Greek, and “ his choice among various readings,” 
as he tells us in his Zvtroductory Remarks,’ “ has chiefly been 
determined by a consensus of well-known editors, such as 
Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, Lachmann and the translat- 
ors of the Revised Version.” He divides the evangelical 
narrative into Farts according to the various periods of Our 
Lord’s life, and breaks it further into Paragraphs, according 
to the principal events recorded. The drift of his marginal 
notes is chiefly critical, and his footnotes are short, clear and 
usually correct. The usefulness of the book is enhanced 
by a harmony of the Synoptic Gospels indicated in the inner 
margins and by the mention of the Gospels for the Sundays 
and principal feasts of the year, in the margin opposite the 
opening words. It is not probable, however, that this “new 


1 WIsEMAN, loc. cit., p. 100. For other examples, see Mompert, A Handbook of 
the English Versions of the Bible. 
2 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, P. vii. 


356 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


version ” will meet with a more lasting success than the 
various independent translations of the Gospels which have 
preceded it. 


3. Archbishop Kenrick’s Bible. The foregoing 
account of the Catholic versions of Holy Writ proves conclu- 
sively that Catholic translators, who do not connect their work 
with the Douay Bible, can hope only for a transient favor 
with the public at large. This was realized by Archbishop 
Kenrick as early as 1849,’ when beginning the publication of 
his translation of the Bible he disclaimed all intention “ to 
substitute it in public acts for the received version,” and 
simply called his work ‘a revision of the Rhemish trans- 
lation’; 4 They recentitailurescote. Dr, > Lincard sav ersion 
caused him to doubt whether his own translation ‘“ from the 
Latin Vulgate ’’ would be more favorably received ; and, in 
point of fact, he went cautiously about issuing its various 
parts. He began with the Four Gospels, which he put forth 
‘“‘ partly with a view to test the feasibility of the work.” 
Next came the Acts and Epistles with the Apocalypse (in 
1851) as a natural completion of the translation of the New 
Testament. Six years later (1857), he published his version 
of the, Psalms, ‘as Jlikely ito: interest the clergy.” @ lie: 
Prophets and Job.appeared in 1859 ; and it was ouly in 1860 
that he completed his Bible, by the publication of the Pen- 
tateuch and the Historical Books. 

In his Introduction to the Book of Job, the translator 
gives us information about his aim, in the following man- 
ner: “My chief object from the commencement has been 
to present in a clear point of view the relation of the Vul- 
gate itself to the text, and thus to furnish a vindication of 


' He was only Bishop of Philadelphia at the time. He was promoted to the arch- 
iepiscopal See of Baltimore in 1851. 


9° 


* Cfr. The Four Gospels, translated from the Latin Vulgate (1st edit. 1849). Title 
page, and Dedication to the Hierarchy of the United States. 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. ooo 


its integrity. I have therefore continued to note, occasion- 
ally, at the foot of the page, the Hebrew MSS. and ancient 
versions which support its readings, and have pointed to 
the source of apparent discrepancies, often originating in 
mere difference of punctuation, or in a transposition of 
letters.”’ Among other general purposes, he constantly aims 
at making theological students, for the special benefit of whom 
he writes, acquainted with Protestantand Rationalistic views. 

Archbishop Kenrick’s Text shows a closer adherence to 
the Vulgate in the Gospels than Lingard had deemed nec- 
essary ; yet he adopts freely Lingard’s readings, as indeed 
those of the Authorized Version, whenever these seem to 
him preferable. In this connection, it is interesting tc 
record the manner in which the learned translator speaks 
of the Latin Vulgate, and of his own method of work: 
“The learned,” he says, ‘are agreed that in the books of 
the New Testament, its readings (those of the Vulgate) are 
generally preferable. In the Pentateuch it frequently gives 
a double version or paraphrase, or it abridges to avoid repe- 
titions, so that, although it faithfully renders the substance, 
it is not as literal and close as the Protestant translation. 
In the historical books it scarcely has the advantage. In 
the Psalms, which came to us through the LXX, the Prot- 
estant Version, being made from the Hebrew, is preferable. 
In Ecclesiasticus much freedom of interpretation by way of 
paraphrase has been used. In the Prophets and Job the 
Vulgate is literal. Respecting it as an authentic version 

. I have, nevertheless, read the Hebrew Text with a 
disposition to prefer its readings, unless critical motives 
weighed in favor of the Vulgate. The Protestant Version, 
therefore, being close, I have not hesitated to prefer it, 
unless where doctrinal bias led its authors to select terms for 
controversial effect, or by paraphrases or otherwise to favor 
their peculiar tenets. 


358 GENERAL liJTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


‘The notes which mark the relation of the Vulgate to the 
text cannot be without interest, especially for students of 
theology and for the clergy, who should not be content with 
having before them the substance of revealed truth, but 
should know the precise terms in- which it is deliv- 
CLOONuen ru 

The annotations are generally critical and explanatory. 
They are numerous, clear and instructive, and for the most 
part selected from the holy Fathers, although occasionally 
borrowed not only from Protestant, but even from Ration- 
alistic sources. They have at times a controversial tone, 
but are more usually positive and moderate statements of 


the correct doctrine.* 
§ 3. Zhe Protestant Translations. 


1. Translations Anterior to the Authorized Ver- 
sion. As already stated, the first men whose work exer- 
cised a real influence upon the gradual formation of the 
Protestant English Bible, and who, on that account, are 
reckoned as its true ancestors, had little to recommend 
them as translators of Holy Writ. ‘They had,” says 
Blunt,3 ‘too easy a confidence in their own abilities for 
this great work; and their translations met with an opposi- 
tion from more learned scholars, which has thrown a sad 
shadow of disunion over the history of the Reformation 
Version of the Bible. Nor were the characters of the trans- 
lators themselves such as were likely to command the 
respect of men under the responsibility of important offices 
in the Church.” These words of a Protestant writer are 


1 General Introduction to the Historical Books (Sept., 1860). 

2 In 1862 Archbishop Kenrick gave a second edition of his volume on The Four Gos- 
pels. This was a truly revised edition, in the preparation of which new sources were 
consulted and special critical signs introduced into the text. No other part reached a 
second edition. 

3 A Key to the Knowledge and Use of the Holy Bible, p. 24. 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. 359 


not too severe to describe such men as (1) William Tyn- 
DALE (1471-1536), a Franciscan priest, who, having turned 
out a Protestant, undertook to publish a translation of the 
whole Bible from the original text, though he had but little 
knowledge of Hebrew;’ (2) Miles CovERDALE (1487 ?- 
1568), an Augustinian monk, also an apostate from Cathol- 


icism, who “ was no Greek or Hebrew scholar,” ” 


although 
he is said to have assisted Tyndale in his rendering of the 
Pentateuch, so that his Bible was “only translated from 
the Dutch (i.e. German) and Latin;” and finally (3) John 
ROGERS (1500 ?—1555), also an apostate priest, who became 
a zealous reformer, and whose work in connection with the 
English Bible was practically limited to a slightly revised 
edition of the work of those who had gone before him. 

It is neither necessary nor useful to give here details 
about the respective work of the three translators just men- 
tioned. That of Tyndale, on the New Testament, was 
unquestionably the one destined to influence most the subse- 
quent editions of the Protestant Bible, and the revésers of 
the Authorized Version in 1881 speak of “ Tyndale’s trans- 
lation of the New Testament as the true primary version, 
for the versions that followed were either substantially 
reproductions of it in its final shape, or revisions of ver- 
sions that had been themselves almost entirely based on it.” 3 
Of the Old Testament, Tyndale published himself only 
his translation of the Pentateuch and Jonas; the rest of his 
work (from Josue to JI Chronicles inclusively) was em- 
bodied by John Rogers in what has been called the Mat- 
thew’s Bible, from the pseudonym of “Thomas Matthew ” 
which stood at the foot of the dedication. The work of 
Coverdale had as its principal merit that of being the first 


1 Cfr. Sm1Tu, Dictionary of the Bible, vol. iv, pp. 3427, 8q., 3431. 
* Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient MSS., p. 218. 
5 Preface to the Revised Version, p. y. 


360 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


complete English Bible published,’ whereas that of John 
Rogers is especially worthy of notice as marking the begin- 
ning of those revised editions which multiplied as time 
went on, and which are known in history under the names 
of the Great Bible (1539-1541), Laverner’s Bible (1539) 
the Geneva Bible (1557-1560), and finally the Azshops’ 
Bible (1578). 

Of these revisions the principal ones are (1), the Great 
Bible, thus called from its large size, prepared by Coverdale 
and enjoined by Cromwell for popular use in every church: 
in contents it is Matthew’s Bible, ‘ skilfully edited and re- 
vised ;””* (2) the Geneva Bible, thus named from the city 
where it was made by a few English refugees; it was based 
on the Great Bible in the Old Testament and Tyndale’s 
last revision in the New, and it became by far the most pop- 
ular Bible in England for private reading until the publica- 
tion of the Authorized Version; (3) and finally, the Bzshops’ 
Bible, which derives its name from the fact that a certain 
_ number of the revisers were bishops; it was a direct revision 
of the Great Bible, whose diverse parts were variously 
altered, and it seems to have been used almost exclusively 
for public services.3 


2. The Authorized Version (1611). It was at 
the conference held at Hampton Court between the Con- 
formists and the Puritans (Jan. 14, 16 and 18, 1604), and 
presided over by James I, that Dr. John Reynolds, leader 
of the Puritans, suggested to the king the desirableness of 
a new translation of Holy Writ, on the ground that the 
“versions allowed in the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward 

1 The Psalter of Coverdale is the basis of the version of the Psalms still found in the 
Book of Common Prayer. 

2 J. I. Momsert, art. English Versions, in Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious 
Knowledge, vol. i. 


3 The student will find details about these various revisions in MOmMBERT, KENYON, 
STOUGHTON, etc. 


THE ENGLISH . VERSIONS. 361. 


VI were corrupt and not answerable to the truth of the 
original.” ‘The king at once declared himself favorable to 
a new translation, but objected to any notes being ap- 
pended, declaring that those of the Geneva Version were 
untrue and seditious.‘ Nothing, however, was settled at 
the Conference beyond the hope thus held out. 

On the 22d of July, in the same year, the king, who had 
become interested in the project of a new version, an- 
nounced that he had chosen fifty-four learned men to do the 
work, but without any expense to himself. Professing his 
own poverty, he held out before the revisers the hope of 
Church preferment, giving order to the bishops to that 
effect ; while for their immediate expenses he called, though 
in vain, upon the bishops and chapters to contribute to- 
wards the required fund. At the Chancellor’s suggestion, 
the translators met at the universities, where they received 
board and lodging free of cost. The list of the revisers 
contains the names of forty-seven scholars only, who formed 
themselves into six companies, two meeting at Westminster, 
two at Cambridge and two at Oxford, and the parts of the 
original which each company undertook to translate were 
distributed among the members.” They were to work 
according to fifteen rules, drawn up probably by Bancroft, 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, and indorsed by: the king. 
The Bishops’ Bible was to be followed, and as little altered 
as the truth of the original would permit. The old ecclesi- 
astical words were to be kept, viz., the word church not to 
be translated congregation, etc. No marginal notes were to be 
affixed, except for the explanation of the Hebrew and Greek 


1 They were naturally Calvinistic in character, and therefore little favorable to the 
royal government. 

2'The two Westminster groups revised Genesis-IV Kings, and Romans-Jude; the 
Oxford groups Isaias-Malachias, and the Gospels, Acts, with the Apocalypse; while 
those at Cambridge undertook I Chronicles to Ecclesiastes, and the deutero-canonical 
writings. The list of their names is given by Bun’, loc, cit., p. 28. 


362 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


words which might require it. Each member of a company 
must first translate a passage, then his work must be sub- 
mitted to the company to which he belonged, and finally 
revised by the other companies, ultimate differences of 
opinion being reserved to a general meeting of six members 
of each company. Learned men outside the board of re- 
visers might be consulted, and the versions to be used when 
they agreed better with the original than the Bishop’s Bible 
were pointed out to the translators.’ 

How closely these rules were adhered to cannot be ascer- 
tained at the present day; for :t does not appear that any 
of the correspondence connected with the execution of the 
work or any minutes of the revisers’ meetings for confer- 
ence is now extant. ‘“ Never,” rightly observes Scrivener, 
‘‘was a great enterprise like that of our Authorized Version 
carried out with less knowledge handed down to poster- 
ity of the laborers, their method and order of working.”’? 
All we know in regard to their proceedings is limited to 
hints found in the works of the learned John Selden 
(1584-1654), and of Robert Gell, the chaplain to Archbishop 
Abbot, one of the revisers. The former, in his Zad/e 
Talk, tells us that ‘at the meeting of translators one read 
the translation (he had prepared privately), the rest holding 
in their hands some Bible, either of the learned tongues, or 
French, Spanish, Italian, etc.; if they found any fault, they 
spoke; if not,he read on.’’ The latter helps us to represent 
to ourselves “the differences of opinion, settled by the cast- 
ing vote of the ‘odd man,’ or by the strong, overbearing 
temper of a man like Bancroft, the minority comforting 
themselves with the thought that it was no new thing for the 
truth to be outvoted,” and to realize “that dogmatic inter- 


1 These versions were Tyndale’s, Matthew’s, Coverdale’s, Whitchurch’s (a special 
edition of the Great Bible), and the Geneva Bible. 
* Introduction to the Cambridge Paragraph Bible. 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. 363 


ests were in some cases allowed to bias the translation, and 
the Calvinism of one party, the prelatic views of another, 
were both represented at the expense of accuracy.” ? 

'The work of revision, formally taken in hand in 1607, 
occupied two years, after. which began the final revision by a 
committee of six—two out of each group—who met in London 
for the purpose. They completed their task in the short space 
of nine months; and in 1611 the new Bible issued from the 
press with the title: ‘The Holy Bible, conteyning the Old 
Testament and the New. Newly translated out of the orig- 
inall Tongues: and with the former translations diligently 
compared and revised by his Majestie’s speciall command- 
ment. Appointed to be read in the Churches. Imprinted 
at London by Robert Parker, Printer to the King’s most 
excellent Majestie. Anno Dom. 1611.’ 

It is difficult to understand why the words “ Appointed to 
be read in the Churches ” appear in this title-page, for there 
is no evidence of any decree ordaining its use, by either 
King, Privy Council, Parliament or Convocation,’ although 
there is no doubt that it soon superseded the Bishops’ Bible 
as the official version in public services. The Dedication to 
James I is chiefly conspicuous for its servile adulation, and 
the Preface to the Reader has little more value. In this 
latter document we are told by the revisers that “coming 
together for work, they have prayed to God for light, ren- 
dered the Hebrew and Greek texts, and worked without 
haste, consulting the translators or commentators, Chaldee, 
Hebrew, Syrian, Greek or Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, 
Dutch (i. e. Luther’s version), and revising time and again 
their work before publishing it ....” They also claim 


1Smitu, Bible Dictionary, art. Version, Authorized, p. 3436 (Amer. edit., vol. 4th). 

? See a fac-simile of the title page in Ph. Scoarr, A Companion to the Greek Testa- 
ment and English Version, fourth edit., p. 570. 

* Vet it is from these words that the King James’ Version, as it is often called, has 
received its common name of the Authorized Version. 


364 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, 


credit for steering a middle course between the Puritans, — 
who leave the old ecclesiastical words (putting washing for 
baptism, etc.), and the obscurity of the Papists retaining 
foreign words of purpose to darken the sense. In reality 
“the earlier versions of which the revisers of 1611 made 
most use were those of Rheims and Geneva. ‘Tyndale, no 
doubt, fixed the general tone of the version more than any 
other translator, through the transmission of his influence 
down to the Bishops’ Bible, which:formed the basis of the 
revision; but many improvements in interpretation were 
taken from the Geneva Bible, and not a few phrases and 


29) 2 


single words from that of Rheims. Again, the rapidity 
with which the final revision of their work was carried out 
shows that they did not always work without haste, and this 
haste is thus severely but justly censured by the authors of 
the Revised Version of 1881: “When it is remembered,” 
they say, “that this supervision was completed in nine 
months, we may wonder that the incongruities which remain 
are not more numerous.” * 

As might well be expected in a translation, undertaken 
and carried out by such a number and variety of scholars as 
the Authorized Version, the various parts of the Bible are 
unevenly rendered. In the Old Testament, Genesis—IV 
Kings, and Isaias—Malachias, rank first, and the remainder 
of the proto-canonical books, and especially Job and the 
Psalms, are decidedly inferior. In the New ‘Testament, the 
Acts, Gospels and Apocalypse rank in the order named for 
the ability with which the translation was executed, while 
the Epistles are considered as the worst translated among 
the proto-canonical books. Naturally enough, the deutero- 
canonical books are the worst rendered of the whole Bible.® 


1 Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, p. 233. 

2 Preface to the Revised Version of the New Testament, p. 7. Cfr., also, CONANT, 
History of Bible Translation, chap. xxxi, p. 259. 

8 Mombert, A Handbook of the English Versions of the Bible, pp. 375, 379 (1st edit.) 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. 365 


A striking and happy literary feature ot the Authorized 
Version is the predominance of Saxon. Gibbon has about 
seventy, Johnson about seventy-five, Swift eighty-nine, 
Shakespeare about eighty-five, and the Authorized Version 
more than ninety Saxon words in every hundred em- 
ployed. So that from this point of view King James’ 
translation ranks very high. In fact, the style of the 
‘Authorized Version is equally admired by friends and 
opponents. “ All the words used in it,” says Trench, “ are 
of the noblest stamp, alike removed from vulgarity and 
pedantry ; they are neither too familiar, nor, on the other 
side, not familiar enough ; they never crawl on the ground, 
as little are they stilted and far-fetched. And then how 
happily mixed and tempered are the Anglo-Saxon and the 
Latin vocables! No undue preponderance of the latter 
makes the language remote from the understanding of simple 
“Who will say,” exclaims Fred W. 
Faber, after his conversion, “that the uncommon beauty 
and marvellous English of the Protestant Bible is not one 


and unlearned men.” ’ 


of the great strongholds of heresy in this country? It lives 
on the ear like a music that can never be forgotten, like the 
sound of church bells, which the convert hardly knows how 
he can forego. Its felicities often seem to be almost things 
rather than mere words. It is part of the national mind, 
and the anchor of national seriousness. Nay, it is wor- 
shipped with a positive idolatry, in extenuation of whose 
grotesque fanaticism its intrinsic beauty pleads availingly 
with the man of letters and the scholar.” ? 

At the same time, the praise bestowed upon the literary 
beauty of the version of 1611 should not be exaggerated. 
Occasionally the truth of the original is sacrificed to the 


1TreNcH, On the English of the Authorized Version, quoted by ScHarr, A Com. 
panion to the Greek Testament and the English Version (4th edit.), p. 345, sq. 
? Faper, in The Dablin Review, June, 1853, p. 466. 


366 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


beauty of the English; some unseemly phrases in the Old 
Testament could have been easily avoided by the translators,’ 
and the studied variety in its renderings, which was adopted 
by the authors of the King James Version, has produced a 
degree of inconsistency which “cannot be reconciled with 


2 Finally, as a translation, 


the principle of faithfulness. 
the Authorized Version is marred by numerous errors in 
geography, and proper names; by grammatical errors as to 
tenses, article, construction, etc., in the Old Testament; and 
in the New, by mistakes of meaning; by confusion of the 
aorist and perfect and other tenses; by inadequate render- 
ings, etc.” 

Judged from a critical standpoint, the version of 1611 is 
devoid of real value. The translators used no documentary 
sources, and were mostly confined to a few printed editions 
of the Zextus Receptus of the Old and New ‘Testaments. 
Even in their changes of the renderings of the Bishops’ Bible 
it is clear that their critical power is at times very limited, 
and that the improvements introduced are no proof of 
independent work on their part.’ 

Perhaps the most objectionable feature about the Author- 
ized Version arises from the fact that, differently from the 
Douay Bible, cases of wilful perversion of Scripture have 
been brought home to its Protestant authors. In his story 
of the Protestant Reformation,’ Archbishop M. J. Spalding 
states as a fact that “the version of King James, on its first 
appearance in England, was openly decried by the Protes- 


1 Cfr. ScHAFF, loc. cit., p. 341, Sq. ; 

* Preface to the Revised Version of the New Testament (1881), (8vo edit.), p: rr, For 
example, the Greek verb pevecv is rendered by “to abide, remain, continue, tarry, dwell, 
endure, be present; ’’ the conjunction xat is translated: “and, even, also, but, yet, then, 
so, when, therefore, if.’’ 

3 For details, see MomMBERT, loc. cit., p. 399, sq.; and also The Revision of the New 
Testament, by LigHTFooT, TRENCH, and ELLICOTT. 

£Cfr. MomBerrt, loc. cit., pp. 391, sqq. 

5 Seventh edition, vol. i, p. 308, 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. 367 


tant ministers as abounding in gross perversions of: the 
‘original text.’”” We have heard already Rob. Gell, the 
chaplain to Dr. Abbott, the Protestant Archbishop of 
Canterbury, describing to us how “ dogmatic interests were 
in some cases allowed to bias the translation, and the Cal- 
vinism of one party, the prelatic views of another, were 
both represented at the expense of accuracy.’’ Here we 
shall give only one recent Protestant testimony, viz., that of 
Bishop Ellicott, who does not fear to say that, “in spite of 
the very common assumption to the contrary, there are 
many passages (in the version of 1611) from which errone- 
ous doctrinal inferences have been drawn, but where the 
inference comes from the translation, and not the original.” ' 
In point of fact, such passages as Matt. xix, 11; I Cor. vii, 
Preixy 5 0cl1 27,0 eb: x, 35, etC.,shave justly been pointed 
out by Archbishop Kenrick,’ as so many dogmatic erroneous 
renderings, and it is only right to add that some of these 
have been corrected by the revisers of 1881. 


3. The Revised Version (1881, 1885). If one had 
judged of the future fortune of the Authorized Version by 
the manner in which it was received at first in England, he 
would have been naturally led to foretell its final rejection. 
The Bishops’ Bible continued to be used in many churches, 
and the popularity of the Geneva translation remained intact, 
as is shown by the fact that no less than thirteen editions of 
it (in whole or in part), were issued between 1611 and 1617. 
Protestant ministers found fault very commonly with the 
renderings of King James’ translation and the best Hebraist 


1 Considerations on the Revision of the English Version of the New Testament, p. 89; 
see also p. 88, where he speaks of ‘‘ passages in which the error is of a doctrinal 
nature) 3.2 
2 Theologia Dogmatica, vol. i, p. 427, sq. (Philadelphia, 1839). Cfr. also F. W. Fa- 


BER, in The Dublin Review, June, 1853, p. 466, sq. 


368 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


of the day, Hugh Broughton (f 1612) attacked it with vigor. 
Broughton’s opposition was continued by so great a scholar 
as Jn.‘Lightfoot (f 1675), who, in a sermon before the House 
of Commons, delivered in 1646, argued powerfully for “a 
review and survey of the translation of the Bible, that the 
three nations might come to understand the proper and gen- 
uine study of the Scriptures by an exact, vigorous and lively 
translation.” Feeling ran so high against the Authorized 
Version, that in the very midst of the agitations of the Com- 
monwealth, an order for a new revision of the Scriptures was 
introduced in the Long Parliament in 1652 and again in 
1656, and was long discussed by a special committee of the 
House of Commons.’ No report, however, was made, and 
after the restoration of the Stuarts, ‘the tide of conserva- 
tive feeling, in this, as in other things, checked all plans of 
further alteration. Many had ceased to care for the Bible 
at all. Those who did care were content with the Bible as 
it was. Only here and there was a voice raised, like Rob. 
Gell’s, declaring that it had defects, that it bore in some 
things the stamp of the dogmatism of a party.” * Gradually 
King James’ Version came into general use, till, “ with the 
reign of Anne (1702-1714) the tide of glowing panegyric set 
in,” ° and the schemes for revision became very rare. 

Only with the last quarter of the eighteenth century did 
serious schemes for a revision reappear. ‘Then it was that 
men of real learning, such as Durell, Lowth, Blayney, Ken- 
nicott, Geddes, Newcome, etc., contended that the Author- 
ized Version was far from perfect, that the Hebrew Text its 
authors had rendered into English should not have been 
closely adhered to, etc. Nor was their contention purely 
theoretical, for these distinguished scholars issued versions 


1 For details, see STOUGHTON, Our English Bible, p. 272, sqq. 
2 PLumpTRE, art. Version, Authorized, in Smitu, Bible Dict., Amer. edit., vol. iv, 


Pp. 3437. 
3 PLUMPTRE, ibid. 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. 369 


of particular books which may be regarded as productions 
truly calculated to prepare for a larger and united effort. 
“ But in 1796 the note of alarm was sounded. A feeble 
pamphlet by George Burges (Letter to the Lord Bishop of 
Ely) took the ground that ‘the present period was unfit,’ 
and from that time, conservatism pure and simple was in 
the ascendant. To suggest that the Authorized Version 
might be inaccurate was almost as bad as holding ‘ French 
(i. e. revolutionary) principles.’ There is a long interval 
before the question again comes into anything like prom- 
iInencesrar es aa 

The question came up again into prominence towards the 
middle of the nineteenth century, and slowly something like 
a consensus of English-speaking scholars of England and 
America was formed for a revision. Foremost among the 
promoters of this consensus were the Anglican bishops, 
Ellicott and Trench, whose words, at once bold and wise, 
went far towards reconciling the mind of many among the 
clergy and the laity, with the idea of the possibility, and 
even the necessity, of a revision.” Scholarly attempts at 
translations which gradually multiplied, and which united a 
profound reverence for the old translators and their work, 
together with a sincere desire to produce an improved Ver- 
sion of Holy Writ, convinced many of the feasibility of a 
revision, and were at the same time positive contributions 
towards its accomplishment. 3 

The reasons chiefly urged to gradually prepare a change 
in public opinion, were the following: (1) the translation of 
the New Testament had been made from a text confessedly 


1 PLuMPTRE, ibid., p. 3439. 

2 The words of Evticort, in his Preface to his Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles 
are vigorous, and even now deserve to be read (pp. viii-x). 

3 A list of these Revisions or New Translations, is givenin SmiTu, Bible Dict., Amer. 
edit., vol. iv, p. 3444. There was even an attempt at a Revision of the (whole) Author- 
ized Version, by Five Clergymen ; but the work has remained incomplete. 


370 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


imperfect, and since 1611 the Greek Text had reached a 
condition far nearer the ¢szsstma verba of the inspired writ- 
ers. In like manner, the translation of the Old Testament 
had been made too closely from the Hebrew Zextus Receptus 
considered at the time as perfectly faultless; (2) obsolete 
words had to be changed; others, in a goodly number, had 
been slowly passing into a different sense, and were therefore 
no longer adequate renderings; (3) endless variations in 
renderings evidently needed correction; (4) “ grammati- 
cal inaccuracy was a defect pervading more or less the whole 
extent of the Authorized Version of the New Testament... . 
The true force of tenses, cases, prepositions, articles, is con- 
tinually lost, sometimes at the cost of the finer shades which 
give vividness and emphasis, but sometimes also entailing 
more serious errors;”’ (5) the Hebrew meanings had not 
been determined by means of forms in the cognate Semitic 
languages, and Hebrew grammars, lexicons, commentaries, 
etc., had been greatly improved during the nineteenth cen- 
tury; (6) even doctrinal errors were at times insisted upon 
as showing that the revision was something of a moral duty.’ 

At length, after upwards of a century of discussion and 
attempts, a new and more successful step towards a revision 
was taken by both Houses of the Convocation of Canter- 
bury. In February, 1870, they unanimously passed a reso- 
lution to the effect “that a Committee of both Houses be 
appointed, with power to confer with any committee that may 
be appointed by the Convocation of the Northern Province 
(that of York), to report upon the desirableness of a Revision 
of the Authorized Version of the Old and New Testaments, 
whether by marginal notes or otherwise, in all those passages 
where plain and clear errors, whether in the Hebrew or 


1 PrumprTRE, loc. cit. p. 3441. For examples, see SCHAFF, A Companion to the Greek 


Testament and English Version (4th edit.), pp. 350-359. 
2 For details, cfr. The Revision of the New Testament, by LicHTFooT, TRENCH 


and ELLicorTtT. 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. 371 


Greek Text originally adopted by the translators, or in the 
translation made from the same, shall, on due investigation, 
be found to exist.”” Eight members of the Upper, and six- 
teen of the Lower, House were appointed the Committee of 
the Convocation of Canterbury, and the Convocation of the 
Northern Province declined to co-operate with the Southern 
in this inquiry, on the ground that “the time was not favor- 
able for revision, and the risk was greater than the probable 
gain.” 

Early in May, the Committee of the Southern Province 
presented a report, in consequence of which the following 
fundamental resolutions were adopted: (1) that it is desir- 
able that a revision of the Holy Scriptures be undertaken ; 
(2) that the revision be so conducted as to comprise both 
marginal renderings and such emendations as it may be 
found necessary to insert in the text of the Authorized 
Version ; (3) that, in the above resolutions, we do not con- 
template any new translation of the Bible, or any alteration 
of the language, except where, in the judgment of the most 
competent scholars, such change is necessary; (4) that in 
such necessary changes, the style of the language employed 
in the existing version be closely followed ; (5) that it is de- 
sirable that Convocation should nominate a body of its own 
members to undertake the work of revision, who shall be at 
liberty to invite the co-operation of any eminent for scholar- 
ship, to whatever nation or religious body they may belong.” 

The Committee accordingly appointed resolved, that two 
companies should be formed for the revision of the Author- 
ized Version of the Old Testament and the New Testament, 
respectively; that the first should consist of four bishops 
and four members of the Lower House, together with 
eighteen scholars and divines; that the second should also 
consist of four bishops, four members of the Lower House, 
and nineteen invited scholars and divines. 


372 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Soon after these two companies had begun their work, 
the Committee of Convocation sought the co-operation of 
American scholars, in order to furnish a revision for the 
churches which had used so far the Authorized Version. 
The negotiations, begun in August, 1870, were conducted 
mainly through Ph. Schaff, of New York. Through his 
exertions, two companies of American revisers, “men of 
ability, experience and reputation in biblical learning and 
criticism, and fairly representing the leading churches and 
theological institutions of the United States,” ' were formed 
before the close of 1871. After long negotiations referring 


OM oh! 


to certain difficulties which stood in the way of co-opera- 
tion, the American companies entered on their work on 
October 4, 1872. 

The English and American Committees of Revision counted 
about eighty members, exclusive of about twenty more, who 
died or resigned after the work began. The principal British 
revisers. were the £xegefes (Anglican) Trench, Ellicott, 
Lightfoot, Kay, Perowne, Alford; (from other denomina- 
tions) Alexander, Angus, Brown, Fairbairn, Milligan; and 
the Critics : Tregelles, Scrivener, Westcott and Hort, Saml. 
Davidson.” The best-known scholars among the members 
of the American Committee were: W. H. Green, De Witt, 
Stowe, H. Thayer, Ezra Abbott, Ph. Schaff, H. B. Hackett, 
Conant and Day. 

The principal rules to be applied by both Committees 3 in 
carrying out the revision of the New Testament are as 
follows: (1) to introduce as few alterations as possible in the 
text of the Authorized Version, consistently with faithfulness ; 


1 Ph. Scuarr, The Revision of the English Version of the New Testament, Introduc- 
tion, p. xvii. 

2 Newman, Pusey and Cook, declined; Tregelles did not, in fact, co-operate, on 
account of ill-health. 

3 These rules are given zz extenso, in the Preface to The Revised Version of the New 
Testament. 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. B73 


(2) each company to go twice over the portion to be revised, 
once provisionally, the second time finally ; (3) that the 
text to be adopted should be that for which the evidence is 
decidedly preponderating, and that when the text so adopted 
differs from that from which the Authorized Version was 
made, the alteration be indicated in the margin; (4) to 
make or retain no change in the text on the final revision by 
each company, except fwo-thirds of those present approve 
of the same; but on the first revision to decide by simple 
majorities ; (5) in every case of proposed alteration that 
may have given rise to discussion, to defer the voting there- 
upon till the next meeting, whensoever the same shall be 
required by one-third of those present at the meeting. 

The English and the American Committees submitted to 
each other portions of their work as they went along, and 
they issued one and the same edition, while the final varia- 
tions of the American Committee were embodied in an Ap- 
pendix. 

After ten years and a half of work, the Revised New 
Testament appeared on May the 17th, 1881, with the title 
of “ The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ, translated out of the Greek: Being the Version set 
forth a. D. 1611, compared with the most ancient Authorities 
and ReVised@Awust551:7 Inetheir long /7c/ace, the’ Re- 
visers give, among other things, an account of their work 
“ under the four heads of Zext, Translation, Language and 
Marginal Notes.” 

Although the work is called a “revision,” not a new 
translation, it is beyond doubt that, considered under those 
various heads, the Revised New Testament is rather a new 
version of the original with reference to the Authorized 
Version. Thus the text adopted as the basis of the new 
version differs so often and so considerably from the 
Lextus Receptus practically followed by the translators of 


374 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, 


1611, that it may really be called a new Greek Testament 
framed on documents which the critics on the Revision 
Committees considered as ‘“‘ most ancient,” and as decidedly 
better than those which underlie the Zextus Receptus. It is 
true that the margin of the Revised Version was supposed, 
in the rules originally laid down for the work of revision, to 
be sufficient to record textual alterations whenever “the 
text adopted would differ from that from which the Author- 
ized Version was made.” But in point of fact, “as it was 
found that a literal observance of this direction would often 
crowd and obscure the margin of the Revised Version, the 
revisers judged that its purpose might be better carried out 
in another manner. They therefore communicated to the 
Oxford and Cambridge University Presses a full and care- 
fully corrected list of the readings adopted which are at 
variance with the readings presumed to underlie the Authcr- 
ized Version, in order that they might be published inde- 
pendently in some shape or another.” * This list has been 
published, and it proves beyond doubt that, in thousands of 
places, the readings ‘“‘ presumed to underlie the Authorized 
Version ” weighed very little in the eyes of the majority of 
the revisers. 

As with the text, so with the Zyrans/ation and the Lan- 
guage: the Revised Version contains alterations incompar- 
ably more numerous than had been contemplated by the 
rules at first laid down for the work of revision. 'To some 
extent, this was the natural outcome of the larger number of 
textual variations adopted by the revisers. But beside 
alterations due to this source, a very large number of 


1, H. A. ScrtvENER, The New Testament in the Original Greek according to the Text 
followed in the Authorized Version, together with the variations adopted in the Revised 
Version; Preface, pp. v, vi. The most important variations are connected with Matt. 
vi, 133 Mark. xvi, 9-20; Luke xxii, 43, 44; John v, 3; vii, 53—vili, 1x3 Col. ii, 2; I 
Tim. iii, 16; I John vy, 7, 8. The minor ones are numberless, as can be seen by perusing 
the work of Scrivener just referred to, 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. Bs 


others were introduced, where “ faithfulness in rendering ” 
was in no way at stake, and consequently where they could 
not be called necessary.’ Finally, the AZarginal Notes differ 
likewise considerably from those of the Authorized Version, 
both in character and in number. In general, they wear a 
more critical appearance in the Revised Version; and in 
particular, the “notes recording alternative renderings in 
difficult or debatable passages are numerous, and largely 
in excess,” so the revisers tell us, ‘ of those which were ad: 
mitted by our predecessors.” ” 

When we bear in mind that the sum total of the departures 
from King James’ Version has been estimated, as regards 
the New Testament alone, at over 36,000,3 it is easy to im- 
agine something of the dismay with which the Revised New 
Testament was received in many quarters, by men thor- 
oughly familiar with the words and the minutest details of 
the Authorized Version. ‘Most of them,” well observes 
Ph. Scuarr, “ had previously resisted all attempts at revision 
as a sort of sacrilege, and found their worst fears realized. 
They were amazed and shocked at the havoc made with their 
favorite notions and pet texts. How many sacred associa- 
tions, they said, are ruthlessly disturbed! How many edify- 
ing sermons spoiled! Even the Lord’s Prayer has been 
tampered with, and a discord thrown into the daily devo- 
tions. The inspired text is changed and unsettled, the faith 
of the people in God’s holy Word is undermined, and aid 
and comfort given to the enemy of all religion.” * 

“The first and the prevailing impression,” says the same 


1 This can be best realized by means of such works as The Diacritical Edition of the 
Holy Bible, published for the purpose of comparison between the two versions, by 
Rufus WENDELL. Cfr. also Ph. Scuarr, A Companion to the Greek Testament and 
the English Version, p. 434, sqq. 

* Preface to the Revised New Testament, p. xiii. 

3 Cfr. Ph. ScHaFr, loc. cit., p. 418. 

* ScHAFF, ibid., p. 413. 


376 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


critic,’ “was one of disappointment and disapproval, especially 
in England. . . . Many were in hopes that the revision would 
supersede commentaries, and clear up all the difficulties ; 
instead of that, they found the same obscurities, and a per- 
plexing number of marginal notes, raising as many questions 
of reading or rendering. ‘The liberals looked for more, the 
conservatives for fewer, departures from the old version. 
Some wanted the language modernized, others preferred 
even the antiquated words and. phrases, including the 
‘whiches’ and the ‘devils.2. A few would prefer a more 
literal rendering ; but a much greater number of critics, in- 
cluding some warm friends and even members of the Com- 
mittee, charge the revision with sacrificing grace and ease, 
poetry and rhythm, to pedantic fidelity. The same objection 
is made by literary critics who care more for classical Eng- 
lish than the homely Hebraistic Greek of the Apostles and 
Evangelists.” 

In justice it must be said that the Revised New Testa- 
ment is, in several respects, superior to the corresponding 
part in the Authorized Version. Textual corrections, 
improved renderings, suppressed inconsistencies,  etc., 
could be mentioned in large number,” so that it is not sur- 
prising to find that it has been steadily gaining ground 
among the scholars of the various denominations. On the 
other hand, it cannot be denied that in numerous cases 
regarding either the text * or the translation and language,‘ 
the Authorized Version is decidedly better. Upon the 
whole, the Revised New Testament cannot lay claim to be, 


1 Schaff, ibid., p. 412, sq. It should be remembered that Ph. Scuarr was the Pres- 
ident of the American Revision Committee. 

2 Yor numerous examples, see Ph. Scuarr, loc. cit., p. 420, sq. 

5 See in particular the work (however exaggerated in its tone) of Dean J. W. Burcon, 
entitled The Revision Revised. 

4 See, especially, Washington Moon, The Revisers’ English. In connection with 
the question of the Laxguage, this English literary critic says justly: “ The American 
company of revisers suggested many very judicious emendations which unfortunately 
were not duly appreciated by the English revisers ” (p. 117). 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS. ey. 


and is not in fact, considered as a final translation of the 
original Greek, or even as a really successful revision of 
King James’ Version.’ 

While the Revised Version of the New Testament was 
assailed by critics in all directions, and was declared by a 
very large number of them wholly unfit to displace the old 
version, the revision committees of England and America 
were pursuing the arduous task of completing their trans- 
lation of the proto-canonical books of the Old Testament.” 
Only four years later (in 1885) did they give to the public 
the result of their prolonged labors. ‘The entire Bible 
appeared then, under the general title of ‘‘ The Holy Bible 
containing the Old and New Testaments translated out of 
the Original Tongues: being the Version set forth a. D. 
1611, compared with the most Ancient Authorities and 
revised.” 

In their Preface to the Old Testament the revisers tell 
us * that “as the state of knowledge on the subject of the 
original text is not at present such as to justify any attempt 
at an entire reconstruction of the text on the authority of 
the versions, they have thought it more prudent to adopt 
the Massoretic Text as the basis of their work, and to de- 
part from it, as the authorized translators had done, only 
in exceptional cases.” This they have really done, and in 
consequence, as they practically rendered the same text as 
the translators of 1611, the Revised Old Testament is mnch 
less altered than the New. Alterations of the Authorized 
Version are much more numerous in interpretation and 
language than in text, but it cannot be denied that in 


1See the admissions of Ph. Scuarr,in his work so often already referred to, p. 
416, sq. 

? The revision of the deutero-canonical books was not initiated by convocation, but 
by the University Presses, which commissioned a company, formed from the Old and 
New Testament Companies, to carry out the work. The Revised “ Apocrypha,” as 
they are called, appeared in 18095. 

3 Preface, p. v (octavo edit.). 


378 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


most changes—especially as regards the interpretation of 
the prophetical and poetical books—the revisers were 
particularly happy. It is only natural, therefore, to find 
that when the Revised Old Testament was put forth, the 
popular verdict was more favorable to it than it had been 
four years previously to the Revised New ‘Testament. 
“lhe improvements in interpretation of obscure passages 
were obvious, while the changes of language were less 
numerous ; moreover, the language of the Old ‘Testament 
books being less familiar than that of the Gospels, the 
changes in it passed with less observation.” ’ On the other 
hand, the verdict of scholars was at first, and is still, less 
favorable to the revision of the Old Testament than to that 
of the New. It is rightly felt that in many cases the 
revisers did not avail themselves freely enough of all the 
critical work which has been going on during the last 
hundred years, and that they did not sufficiently take into 
account the numerous emendations of the Hebrew Text 
upon which Textual Critics are fully agreed. It seems, 
therefore, that the Revised Old Testament must be regarded 
as “decidedly behind the scholarship of the age. The 
work was timid and cautious. There is little doubt that the 
next revision, whenever it takes place, will be bolder and 
freer, and that the ancient versions, especially the Septua- 
gint, will play a larger part in the work.” * 

The foregoing remarks concerning the Revised Version 
apply fully to its text as issued by the University Presses of 
Oxford and Cambridge (England). They apply also, almost 
in their entirety, to the standard edition which was recently 
published for American readers by Thos. Nelson and Sons, 
New York.® This American edition has for its general pur- 


1 Frederic G. Kenyon, Our Rible and the Ancient Manuscripts, p. 244. 

2 J, Paterson SmytH, The Old Documents and the New Bible, 3d edit., p. 185. 
See, also, substantially the same verdict in Kriccs, The :tudy of Holy Scripture, 
p- 216. 

3 The New Testament appeared in 1900, and the Old Testament in rgor. 


THE ENGLISH VERSIONS, 379 


pose to improve, in various ways, the text of the Revised 
Version. It aims, in particular, at embodying in the text 
those readings and renderings for which the members of the 
American Committees had expressed their preference while 
at work with the English Committees of Revision, but most 
of which had simply been recorded in Appendices to the 
copies of the Revised Version issued by the University 
Presses. 

The most obvious departures of the American edition of 
the New Testament from the English edition of 1881 con- 
sist in the addition of references to parallel and illustrative 
Biblical passages, and of running headings to indicate the 
contents of the pages. Other departures are connected 
with the division into paragraphs, the punctuation of the 
text, the titles of the books,' and the alternative title of the 
New Testament.? As regards language, the American 
editors have dropped numerous archaisms or forms of ex- 
pression otherwise objectionable. 

The American edition of the Old Testament is likewise 
supplied with topical headings and references to parallel 
passages. Its text is practically identical, in regard to 
rendering, punctuation, and division into paragraphs, with 
that published in 1885. The titles of the books have not 
been interfered with, but the language of the work,in respect 
to the use of “shall’’ and “will,” of the relative pronouns, 
Oia } instead of “an before’ h,” aspirated, etc:, etc., 
has been improved. ‘The editors have introduced the con- 
ventional form “ Jehovah” instead of the forms “ Lorp” 
and “Gop” used in the edition of 1885. They have also 
substituted “sheol’’ for “the grave,” “the pit,’ and “hell,” 

1 The titles to the Gospels runs “The Gospel according to Matthew,” ‘‘The 
wospel according to Mark,” etc.; that to the Acts of the Apostles is simply ‘* The 
Acts’’; those to the Epistles of St. Paul read: *‘ The Epistle of Paul to the Romans,” 
“The First Epistie of Paul to the Corinthians,”’ etc. 


2The New Testament reads: ‘*The New Covenant, commonly called the New 
Testament of Our Lordand Saviour Jesus Christ.”’ 


380 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


in places where these terms had been retained by the Eng- 
lish Revision. These last changes will hardly commend 
themselves to most Protestant readers. 

The American edition of the Revised Version is, upon 
the whole, a decided improvement on the English edition of 
the same. Most, however, of the textual defects of the 
English Revision which have been pointed out above have 
been allowed to subsist, and will prevent critics at large 
from regarding it as anything like a final translation of the 
Sacred Scriptures.’ 


1 Cfr. art. English Versions, in Hastines’ Dictionary of the Bible, vol. v (extra 
vol.). 


PART THIRD. 


BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS. 


SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER XVI 


(ENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION, 


T 


wary 


NATURE 


AND DIVI- 1. Nature of Biblical Hermeneutics. 


SIONS OF Bir- | 2. Divisions of Biblical Hermeneutics. 


LICAL HER- 


MENEUTICS: 














pO eee { Notion and twofold Species ; 
; i {4 Has any passage of Holy Writ more 
Sense: 
| than one literal Sense ? 
I Definition and three- (EEE 
H. fold Division : eeu! et : 
2. Typical Hee eh 
THE Coe Existence and Extent in Old and New 
; Testaments. 
VARIOUS Its Proving Force. 
SENSES OF What is it? 
3. Accommo- f{ When found in Holy Scripture? 
HoLy WRIT: dative How far allowed to Christian Inter- 
Sense : | preters? 
4. Mythical Its notion. Is it found in Holy 
Sense : Writ? 
Follow the ordinary Laws of Human 
. Language. 
III. Conform to Decisions and Common 
G 1 Sentiment of the Church. 
PRINCIPAL A alae. Follow the Unanimous Consent of 
ules : the Fathers. 
RULES OF Take as Guide the Analogy of 
: Faith. 
INTER- 
2. Special f 
PRETATION : Rules ap- ; The Literal Sense. 
plicable | ae Typical Sense. 
to: 


382 


CHAPTER XVI. 
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETAYION, 
§ 1. Mature and Divisions of Biblical Hermeneutics. 


1. Nature of Biblical Hermeneutics. Of the three 
great parts of a General Introduction to the Holy Scriptures, 
the one which immediately preparcs the student for his per- 
sonal study of the sacred text is that which is usually des- 
ignated under the name of Biblical Hermeneutics. Neither 
Biblical Canonics, which teaches him what are the books he 
must regard as Holy Writ, nor Biblical Zextwal Criticism, 
which makes him acquainted with the means available to 
restore the sacred text to its primitive purity, directly help 
him to seize the correct meaning of the inspired records. 
It is different with Biblical ermenecutics, whose very name, 
derived from the Greek {ppyyeber, to explain, bespeaks its 
most intimate connection with the actual interpretation of 
the Word of God. At the present day the term Hermeneutics, 
when used in regard to the sacred text, is generally under- 
stood to mean the science of the principles according to 
which the Bible should be interpreted.’ | 

It is true that the general laws which govern the interpre- 
tation of ancient books hold good, to a very large extent, in 
the interpretation of the Canonical Books. Yet it cannot 


1 Exegesis from the Greek é&nyeto@at, to explain, is a word of identical import to 
Hermeneutics. Commonly, however, the former word denotes the commentary or inter- 
pretation of the text; while the latter applies to the science of the principles upon 
which Exegesis should be conducted. 


383 


384 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


be denied that, owing to their Oriental, and, more particu- 
larly, to their sacred character, the inspired records of the 
Old and New Testaments demand to be interpreted by 
means of special rules which make up the domain of Bibli- 
cal Hermeneutics.’ 


2. Divisions of Biblical Hermeneutics. As might 
naturally be expected, a different view of this domain is 
taken by the various writers on General Introduction. While 
some think it necessary to deal with certain principles of in- 
terpretation, others deem it superfluous because they con- 
sider them as plain and obvious. Again, other writers devote 
an entire section of their treatise on Biblical Hermeneutics to: 
setting forth and illustrating peculiar exegetical rules, while 
others give to them only a passing notice, or at least think 
it unnecessary to insist on them at length. Perhaps the 
most elaborate division of Biblical Hermeneutics, and one 
which has been adopted more or less fully by subsequent 
writers, is the following, proposed in 1852, by J. E. CEr- 
LERIER. (1) Grammatical Hermeneutics, or the collection 
of rules which guide the interpreter in ascertaining the pre- 
cise meaning of the words and phrases which he meets with in 
the original languages of the Bible ; (2) Historical Hermeneu- 
tics, or the body of rules concerning the influence which the 
external relations of position, time, country, etc., have exer- 
cised upon the sacred writer ; (3) Scr7ptural Hermeneutics, or 
a class of rules deduced from the general study of the Bible 
itself and from a special consideration of its various parts; 
(4) Doctrinal Hermeneutics, which guide us in our search for, 
and determination of, the divine revelation made known to 
usin Scripture; (5) finally, Psychological Hermeneutics, deal- 


1 For further information, see CHAUVIN, op. cit., p. 436, sq. 

? CELLERIER’S work is entitled: Manuel d’Herméneutique Biblique; an abridged 
translation of it has been published by ELtiotr and Harsua, Biblical Hermeneutics, 
New York, 1881. 


GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 385 


ing with certain dispositions (intellectual and moral), which 
an interpreter should possess in the accomplishment of his 
task. 

It is plain that these and other such elaborate divisions 
of Biblical Hermeneutics are the work of writers who aim 
at what they consider to be a complete treatment of the sub- 
ject. In reality they include under the name of Biblical 
Hermeneutics topics which belong to other departments of 
scriptural knowledge, or which do not of themselves require 
to be developed in order to fit the student for a personal and 
profitable study of the sacred text. Our treatment of Her- 
meneutics in the present volume will be of a far more ele- 
mentary kind: after having briefly set forth the General 
Principles of Interpretation absolutely necessary to guide 
the student in understanding Holy Writ, we shall give a 
rapid sketch of the principal Periods in the History of In- 
terpretation. 


§ 2. The Various Senses of Holy Writ. 


1. The Literal Sense. The first duty of an interpreter 
of Holy Writ, is to inquire into the sense which the writer 
of a sacred book intended proximately and directly to convey 
through the words he used.’ This sense, which is now com- 
monly called the //era/ sense,’ is plainly the primary object 
of the statements made by the writer, so that no one reading 
or explaining them can overlook it, without running the 
evident risk of missing the exact meaning of the book be- 
fore him, and of reading into its words his own sense instead 
of that of the author. 

As every writer can, and in fact does, freely use terms in 


1 Cfr. Jos. Dixon, Introduction to the Sacred Scriptures, vol. i, p. 174 (Baltimore, 1853) 

* Latin writers on Hermeneutics give it also the name of the Azstorical sense, imitat- 
ing in this the Greeks, who at times call it the sense cata tiv iotopiar St. Thomas 
gives an excellent definition of the 2:teva/ sense, when he says “ est id quod ex ipsa ver- 
borum acceptione recte accipitur ” (Quodlib. vii, quest. 6, art. 14). 


386 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


their primitive and in their derived acceptation to express 
proximately and directly his mind, so there is a twofold literal 
sense to be recognized in a book of Holy Writ. If the 
words are employed in their natural and primitive significa- 
tion, the sense which they express is the proper literal sense ; 
whereas, if they are used with a figurative and derived mean- 
ing, the sense, though still literal, is usually called the meta- 
phorical or figurative sense. For example, when we read in 
St. John i, 6, “ There was a man whose name was John,” it 
is plain that the terms employed here are taken properly and 
physically, for the writer speaks of a real man whose real 
name was John. On the contrary, when John the Baptist, 
pointing out Jesus, said, “‘ Behold the Lamb of God” (John 
i, 29), it is clear that he did not use the word “lamb” in 
that same proper literal sense which would have excluded 
every trope or figure, and which would have denoted some 
real lamb: what he wished proximately and directly to 
express, that is, the literal sense of his words, was that in the 
derived and figurative sense Jesus could be called “the 
Lamb of God.” In the former case, the words are used in 
their proper literal sense; in the latter, in their tropical or 
figurative sense. 

That the books of Holy Writ have a literal sense (proper 
or metaphorical, as just explained), that is, a meaning prox- 
imately and directly intended by the inspired writers, is a 
truth so clear in itself, and at the same time so universally 
granted, that it would be idle to insist on it here. The same 
holds good in regard to another question, which was for- 
merly the object of much discussion among scholars, and 
which may be thus formulated : Has any passage of Holy 
Writ more than one literal sense? If we except a few con- 
temporary interpreters of Holy Writ, the best known among 
whom is Dr. Franz SCHMID,’ all admit that since the sacred 


1 De Inspirationis Bibliorum vi et Ratione, Brixina, 1885, p. 246, sqq. 


GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 387 


books were composed by men, and for men, their writers 
naturally conformed to that most elementary law of human 
intercourse, which requires that only one precise sense shall 
be proximately and directly intended by the words of the 
speaker or writer. It is true that St. Augustine ' maintained 
that some passages of Holy Writ had several literal senses, 
but it is no less true that no Father of the Church, before or 
after him, was of the same mind, so that this view of the 
illustrious Bishop of Hippo was clearly a personal, not a 
traditional one. It is also true that leading theologians of 
the past centuries have admitted several literal senses in con- 
nection with a few scriptural passages, such as Ps. il, 7; 
Isai. liti, 4, 8; etc.; it is beyond doubt, nevertheless, that 
when these and other such texts are closely examined, they 
are found to yield but one literal sense, so that every other 
meaning which is connected with them is not the one proxi- 
mately and directly intended by the sacred writer.” 


2. The Typical Sense. Of the various meanings which 
Catholic interpreters have often considered as a _ second 
literal sense in some passages of Holy Writ, one claims the 
especial attention of the student of Biblical Hermeneutics. 
It is called the sfzretual or typical sense, and is well 
described by St. Thomas in the following words: “The 
author of the Sacred Scripture is God, in whose power it is, 
not only to accommodate words to signify things, but also to 
make the things themselves significative. That first significa- 
tion, therefore, by which the words signify things, belongs to the 
first (or primary) sense, which is historical or literal. But 
that signification, by which the things signified by the words, 
signify yet other things, is called the spiritual sense, which is 


1Cfr. On Christian Doctrine, Book iii, chap. xxvii; Confessions, Book xii, chap. 
XXxi, etc. 

2 For details, see CorNELY, Introductio Generalis, p. 522, sqq.; TrocHon, Introduc- 
tion Générale, p. so8, sqq.; CHAUVIN, Lecons d’ Introduction Générale, p. 456, sqq.; C. H. 
Toy, Quotations in the New Testament ; and commentators generally. 


388 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


founded upon, and supposes, the literal sense.” ' ‘Thus the 
history of Isaac and Ismael, which is told us in the book of 
Genesis, had, beside the literal sense intended by the writer 
of that book, another, viz., a spiritual sense, which is made 
known to us in the Epistle to the Galatians, and according 
to which the facts recorded of Isaac and Ismael fore- 
shadowed both Testaments.* 

The spiritual sense may therefore be defined as that sense 
which the Holy Spirit intends to convey through the things, 
persons, events, etc., to which the words have a direct 
reference. These things, persons or events were so ordained 
by God as to foreshadow others, and, on that account, they 
can signify to us God’s thoughts or purposes. ‘They are 
called zyfes,3 and the name of ¢yfzcal sense is naturally given 
to the sense which is conveyed to us through them. 

Usually the typical sense is divided into allegorical, tropolog- 
zcal and anagogical, according to the three great classes of 
objects foreshadowed in Holy Writ. (1) The a//egorical or 
prophetic sense is given by the types which refer to Christ 
and His Church, and the principal of which are either persons 
like Adam,’ Melchisedech,’ etc., or things, such as the ark,° 
the brazen serpent,’ etc., or, finally, events, such as the dis- 
missal of Agar and her child, etc. (2) The ¢ropological or 
moral sense is derived from types which convey a lesson for 
our moral guidance. Thus the direction given to Israel in 
Deuteronomy (xxv, 4): “ Thou shalt not muzzle the ox 
that treadeth out thy corn,” teaches in the tropological sense 


1 Summa Theol., pars. i, quest. i, art. x. The spiritual sense is also called 
mystical, because less obvious, more hidden than the literal sense. 

As(aleav 24. 

3 Cfr. Rom. v, 14; I Cor. x, 6, 11. The name of aztityfes is given to the things, 
persons or events thus foreshadowed. 

S Romeiv, 1455 eGonexvat hy 47,< 

5 Heb. vii, 1-10. 

6] Pet. iii, 20, 21. 

TS JOnmeiyert arse 


GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 389 


pointed out by St. Paul (I Cor. ix, 9), the obligation under 
which Christians are to provide for the maintenance of 
the ministers of the Gospel. (3) The anagogical sense 
is suggested by objects which typify the things of the world 
tow come, Ine thatysense, Jerusalem; “the capital city of 
Judzea, is the figure of the heavenly Jerusalem (Apoc. 
xxl, 2), and the temple of Solomon, the ancient tabernacle, 
and the Mosaic rites are but “the symbol and shadow of 
heavenly things’’ (Heb. viii, 5).’ 

It will be noticed that these examples of the various 
typical senses are at the same time clear proofs that the 
writers of the New Testament admitted the existence of a 
typical sense in the various books of the Old Testament. 
Their belief was in full harmony with the mind of their 
Jewish contemporaries, both in Palestine and in Alexandria, 
—as we see from various places of the Gospels and from the 
writings of Josephus and Philo *—and it has been shared in 
by the Fathers of the Church from the beginning * and by 
Catholic theologians. and interpreters generally down to the 
present day. In fact, the illustrious Origen, and the 
Alexandrian school of Biblical Interpretation have seen 
types everywhere in the Old Testament, and although their 
view is an exaggerated one, it goes far towards showing how 
naturally the typical sense of Holy Writ is suggested by the 
general conception that the Old Testament dispensation was, 
even in its details, preordained to dispose men for the advent 
of Christianity. 

Much more acceptable than this opinion of Origen, is the 


1 Of course one and the same object may be at the same time, a prophetic, tropolog- 
ical, and anagogical type. This is the case, for instance, with Jerusalem, which typifies 
in the allegorical sense, the Christian Church, in the tropological, the Christian soul, in 
the analogical, heaven. 

2 CHauvin, Lecons d’Introduction Générale, p. 469. 

8 Cfr. St. CLEMENT of Rome, I Cor. xii; St. Justin, Dial. against Trypho, chaps. 
xlii, cxiv, cxxi; St. IREN#us, CLEMENT of Alexandria, etc. ‘Their texts are given in 
*S ROCHON, Introduction Générale, p. 554, sq. 


390 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


view entertained by some Catholic authors, that the existence 
of a typical sense should be admitted in connection with the 
persons and events spoken of in the writings of the New 
Testament. It is true that the New Testament dispensation 
is the fulfilment of that of the Old Testament, and is final 
from the standpoint of Revelation; yet it does not seem 
improbable that, in some other way, it may symbolize and 
prefigure events in the life of the Church through centuries.’ 

It is clear that whoever admits the existence of a typical 
sense truly intended by God, as stated in the definition of it 
given above, must also admit its proving force wherever its 
existence is fully ascertained. In point of fact, the sacred 
writers of the New Testament appeal repeatedly to the 
mystical sense of passages of the Old Testament, in exactly 
the same manner as they appeal to the literal meaning of 
others.” As, however, Rationalists and Protestants generally 
deny the existence of such sense in the Holy Scriptures, it 
would avail nothing to draw an argument from the mystical 
sense againstthem. Besides, Catholic theologians think after 
St. Thomas, that one may all the more dispense with having 
recourse to the typical sense of the sacred books, because 
“this sense never conveys a truth necessary for our faith 
that is not found stated in a literal manner somewhere in 
Holy Writ.” * 


3. The Accommodative Sense. It is not always easy 
to distinguish between the typical, and another sense, which is 


1 Cfr. I Cor. x, 16, 17, where we are told that the Eucharistic bread and wine area 
figure of the mutual union of the faithful. In like manner, according to many Fathers, 
Martha and Mary typify the active and contemplative life; again, the bark of Peter 
on the stormy sea, is a striking image of the Church under persecution, etc. See 
CorNELY, loc. cit., p. 540 sq.; ViGouroux, Man. Biblique, vol.i,n. 166 bis, § 3; and 
more particularly St. THomas, Summa Theol., pars. i, quest i, art. x. 

2 Cfr. Matt. ii, 15; Heb.i,5. In these and other such passages, the New Testament 
writers are generally regardedas quoting the Old Testament in its typical sense. 

3“ Rx solo literali sensu posse trahi argumentum quia nihil sub spirituali sensu 
continetur fidei necessarium, quod Scriptura per literalem sensum alicubi manifeste non 
tradat ’’ (St. THomAs, Summa. Theol., pars. i, quest. i, art. x. 


GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 391 


called accommodative, because it consists in the accommodation 
or application of the Scripture to something, of which there 
is no question in the passage quoted, either in the literal or 
in the mystical sense. ‘This accommodation or adaptation 
of the sacred words to an object to which they have no real 
reference may be made in two ways. One by extending their 
meaning to some matter like to that of which they really 
speak; as, for instance, if one would excuse his fault by 
saying in the words of Eve “Serpens decepit me;’’’ the 
other way is by applying the words of a passage to some 
subject quite foreign and unlike to that which is spoken of 
in Holy Writ; as for instance, if any one quoted the words 
of Ps. xvii, 26, ‘‘ Cum sancto sanctus eris,”’ intending thereby 
to point out the beneficial effects of good company for a 
man, whereas, in the text there is question of something 
entirely different, viz.: of God showing Himself kind and 
merciful to the kind and merciful man. 

Most of the time it is easy enough to distinguish this latter 
form of accommodation from the typical sense, but the case 
is oftentimes different in connection with the former way of 
adapting the words of the inspired records. A clear proof 
of this is found in the fact, that the best interpreters of Holy 
Writ are at variance when there is question of determining 
the places where the New Testament writers quote the Scrip- 
tures of the Old Testament in an accommodative sense. 
Thus while most Catholic commentators consider as taken 
at least in their typical sense, the words of the Old Testa- 
ment which are quoted in the New with some such introduc- 
tory formula as “ ut adimpleretur quod dictum est . . .”’ some 
of our very best interpreters have maintained that passages 
quoted in this manner, may be ’ and in fact are at times 


1 Gen. fii, 13. 
? See the valuable remarks of Card. WisEMAN on this point, in his Tenth Lecture on 
the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion. 


392 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


applied by the Evangelists per accommodationem.' Of course, 
the same difficulty does not exist in connection with places 
where these introductory formulas are not used by the sacred 
writers. In such places most Catholic interpreters admit 
readily that passages from the Old Testament are quoted in 
the New in an accommodative sense, although they vary con- 
siderably in regard to the number of accommodations which 
should be recognized. In point of fact, the accommo- 
dative use of Holy Writ is granted by many to exist in 
the following places of the New Testament: Matt. vii, 23; 
x; 3Ou9 Luke xxlil) joa sl plesamiy, = 254" Romo fo moe 
TE CORM Vill, ot Snel eb ex Nitec mie POG y XI 4'y eLey 

Treading in the footsteps of the New Testament writers, 
the Fathers and Doctors of the Church have had frequent 
recourse to this accommodative sense in their expositions of 
the sacred text, and it is well known that the Church her- 
self does the same in her liturgy. Itis therefore allowable 
to the preacher of the Gospel to use it also in his sermons 
and instructions; provided, however, he be careful not to 
give it out as the real meaning of Holy Writ, or as a valid 
proof of Catholic doctrine. Far-fetched and disrespectful 
accommodations of the Word of God should of course be 
avoided.? Finally, there is no doubt that when employed 
with tact and genuine piety, the accommodative sense may 
prove highly useful and edifying.’ 


1 Thus MALDONATUS, S. J.,in connection with Matt. viii, 17, says: ‘‘ Quod a propheta 
(Isaia) de peccatis dictum erat, Evangelista ad morbos corporis accommodat .. . quia 
ita solet Matthzus prophetias non ad eumdem, sed ad similem sensum accommodare ; ”’ 
and in connection with Matt. iv, 14 sq., he writes: “suo more ad Christum accom- 
modat (Evangelista), ut alias.” Cfr. also MALDoNATUS in Matt. ii, 18, 23; xiii, 35, etc. 
—See also ScHANz, Comm. tiber Matthzeus, quoted in The Dublin Review, April, 1895, 


Pp. 330. 
2 Cfr. the Decree of the Council of Trent, Sess. iv, which inveighs strongly against 


such abuses. 
3 Lo XIII, in his Encyclical Providentissimus Deus, says expressly that kept within 


its proper limits, “it isa most valuable means of promoting virtue and piety ”’ (p. 29, 
Official Transl.). 


GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 393 


4. The Mythical Sense. Finally, another sense 
ascribed to Holy Writ, especially by Rationalistic scholars, 
is the mythical sense, thus called from the non-historical 
character of the facts under which certain ideas and truths 
are supposed to be taught to the reader. In the myth, 
as in the parable, the object of the writer, that which 
he intends to convey, is not necessarily the occurrence 
of a real fact, still less the correctness of the details he 
relates, but simply the idea or truth, historical, moral, 
religious, or otherwise, which he makes obvious to his 
reader by means of an apparently historical narrative. 
Those who, for instance, consider as mythical the account 
of man’s temptation and fall, regard as non-historical the 
details which are given of the serpent’s cunning speech to 
the woman, of the eating of an apple as the actual occur- 
rence which constituted man’s first sin, etc., and take them 
simply to be a peculiar way of setting forth the great re- 
ligious truth that the first ancestors of mankind once fell 
away from their primitive innocence through wilful disobe- 
dience to their Maker. In order, therefore, to obtain the 
mythical sense of a writer, one must first disregard the pecu- 
liar dress suited to the notions of the writer’s time and coun- 
try, under which he conveyed his thought; and, secondly, 
grasp the idea or truth, moral, philosophical, religious, or 
even the historical fact, which the writer directly intended 
to teach or record.’ 

Concerning the quest of the mythical sense, which Ration- 


1 A myth, may be (1), Wzs¢orzca/, that is, relating an occurrence not as it actually took 
place, but only in such a manner as it must have appeared to a rude age, with its sen- 
suous modes of thinking and judging; (2), Phzlosophical, that is, derived either from 
pure speculation, or mainly from speculation combined with the data furnished by tra- 
dition ; (3), Poetzcad, that is, fictions imagined by a poetical mind to amplify and adorn 
‘his writings; (4), Jzxed, that is, in which some historical truth is mingled with a 
measure of philosophical] speculation, ‘These definitions are, of course, arbitrary, and 
one scholar considers as a /zstoricad, what another thinks to be-a Ahzlosophical myth. 
(For details, see Sam. Dayrpson, Sacred Hermeneutics, p. 207, sq. 3 p. 210, Sq.) 


394 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


alists of the nineteenth century have applied strictly to both 
the Old and the New ‘Testaments, the Protestant Sam. 
Davipson * speaks in the following forcible words: “To all 
who entertain a true regard for Revelation considered as a 
divine system, it is superfluous to say that the mythical 
interpretation is untenable, erroneous, and impious. With 
infernal zeal it sets itself to destroy the sacred character and 
truth of the books of Scripture. But the Bible is historical 
to such a degree as not to submit to this treatment without 
losing its essential characteristics. It is true that myths are 
interwoven with the histories of all heathen nations. They 
originated at a time when there was no authentic or true 
history. But the Scripture contains a system of doctrine 
based upon history, available for the instruction and moral 
renovation of men. If we strip it of its history, we take 
away the doctrine also; or reduce it at least to a meagre 
skeleton, without flesh and blood and vitality. We fritter 
away its contents to a shadow devoid of substance or 
solidity, where nothing is left but the few moral truths which 
each interpreter is pleased to deduce from the record. The 
Jewish religion as developed in the Old Testament was 
unfavorable to myths. They could not have been intro- 
duced into the sacred books unless it be affirmed that 
prophets and inspired men wrote at random, without the 
superintendence of the Spirit. To intersperse their compo- 
sitions with such legends is contrary to all our notions of 
inspiration, and can only be attributed to them by such as 
deny their spiritual illumination. Nor is there any similarity 
between the Grecian myths and those alleged to exist in the 
Old Testament. The former have no natural connection 
with one another; they stand separate and isolated; while 
the narratives of the latter, from Moses to the latest prophet, 
form a continuous, connected series, without a parallel in the 


1 Sacred Hermeneutics, p. 215. 


GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 395 


mythology of any nation. It is also observable that ‘the 
sacred records are briefer in proportion to their antiquity ; 
thus furnishing a presumption that they were not ornamented 
at a later period with a fabulous dress, or enlarged in adapta- 
tion to the rude notions of a vulgar people. Such concise- 
ness as is found at the commencement of the Mosaic writ- 
ings would not have appeared had myths constituted the 
entire history. The more barbarous the times, the more 
diffuse and gaudy should the myths have been to suit the 
prevailing taste. There is therefore no similarity between 
profane mythology and that which has been attributed to the 
Bible. 

“The introduction of myths into the New Testament is 
still more unscientific, improbable and pernicious. The 
time at which Jesus appeared was not a time of ignorance 


in the history of the world. . . . The Augustan era of litera- 
ture was one of light and knowledge, unfavorable to the 
composition of myths. ... In the New Testament, every- 


thing connected with the history of Jesus is so simple and 
unadorned—so artlessly related—so remote from strained 
efforts, that it were preposterous to suppose the existence of 
myths. . . . There is no mythical dress thrown around oc- 
currences ; fictitious ornaments beseemed neither the majesty 
of the Master whom the writers followed, nor their own art- 
less habits of life and cogitation. They did not belong to 
the philosophers of their day, but to the humblest ranks of 
uneducated life; nor did they know the favorite decora- 
tions in which mythological writers wrapped up unpalatable 
CEOS eee. 

These remarks of Prof. Davidson dispose clearly and 
conclusively of the Rationalistic method of interpretation, 


1 See, also, the valuable remarks of 1’ Abbé H. Rautt in connection with the mythical 
sense, in his Cours Elémentaire d’Ecriture Sainte, nouvelle édition (Paris, 1882), vol. 


i, PP. 95-102. 


396 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, 


which explains away every supernatural occurrence recorded 
in the Bible, by regarding all the miraculous features of the 
narrative as mythical. Are they equally conclusive against 
the view which, while admitting readily the historical charac- 
ter of the New Testament, and of most of the narratives found 
in the Old, grants, nevertheless, that the mythical element 
exists in the first chapters of Genesis and in some narratives 
of the book of Judges? Plainly, they have not appeared 
such to Samuel Davidson himself, who wrote thus at a some- 
what later date: ‘‘ The history of Samson is strongly tinged 
with the mythological and romantic. . . . His whole charac- 
ter savors of the exaggeration with which the traditions of 
later times embellish remote heroes. The deeds he per- 
forms exceed human strength, and are represented as super- . 
natural. . . . In short, the character of’ Samson is such a 
singular compound as can only be accounted for on a principle 
common to the early history of most nations, which embel- 
lishes with the marvellous the old champions who were instru- 
mental in their deliverance from oppressors. The legendary 
is begotten by popular tradition, and exalted in process of 
time into the miraculous. The history of Gedeon is also 
embellished with mythological exaggerations, which should 
not be construed as literary history. . . . 

“These observations will help the reader to see in what 
light the miraculous character of many relations in the book 
of Judges should be viewed. Popular tradition magnified 
into the marvellous and superhuman the deeds of heroic men 
and patriots. Subtracting the legendary and mythological 
from the contents, there is little to detract from historical 
truth and eredimiitye 24.7" 

It is this guarded manner of admitting the mythical sense 
in the interpretation of a comparatively few passages of 


* Sam. Davipson, An Introduction to the Old Testament, vol. i, p. 469, sqq. (London, 
1862). 


GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 397 


Holy Writ, which has been steadily gaining ground among 
Protestant scholars of the latter part of the nineteenth 
century, and which has apparently found some favor in the 
eyes of such recent Catholic writers as Francois LENor- 
MANT,' E. BABELON,” Father Chas. RosBeErt,*® and even Card. 
MEIGNAN, who, after his long and careful study of the books 
of the Old Testament, seems not to maintain the strictly 
historical character of the first chapters of Genesis in the 
following passage :* “One should not look in the first chapters 
of Genesis so much for the strict history of the world and of 
mankind, as for a religious and philosophical account of that 
same history. Indeed, we do not hereby exclude from these 
chapters recollections of historical facts handed down by 
tradition ; but, in relating them, the inspired writer has not 
aimed at absolute precision; he chiefly intended to set forth 
the moral teaching which they convey.” ° 

Views of similar import had also been maintained long 
ago by such able scholars as Dom. CALMET (71757), and 
J. JAHN (f 1817),’ but these views were, and still are, almost 
universally rejected by Catholic interpreters. 


1 Especially in his work : Les Origines de 1’ Histoire d’ aprés la Bible et les Traditions 
des Peuples Orientaux. 


2 In his continuation of LENORMANT’s Histoire Ancienne de l’Orient. Cfr. vol. vi, p. 
207. 
3 In La Revue Biblique, Oct., 1895, pp. 528-535. 


‘This passage is extracted from an article by the learned Cardinal, entitled, L’Eden, 
and published in The Correspondant, Feb., 1895. 


5 Owing to the great difficulty of rendering adequately Card. Meignan’s idiomatic 
words, we subjoin the passage in the original French: “ Il ne faut pas tant chercher 
dans les premiers chapitres de la Genése une histoire précise du monde et de l’humanité, 
que la philosophie religieuse de cette histoire. Certes, nous ne nions pas, dans ces 
chapitres, les souvenirs de faits historiques conservés parla tradition; mais, en les re- 
latant, l’auteur inspiré n’a point visé a une précision mathématique, il a voulu surtout 
mettre en relief la doctrine morale qui s’en dégage.” 

6 See CALMET’s Commentaire Littéral sur l’Epitre de St. Jude, verse 7; p. 350 (Paris, 
1726). 

7 Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 242, sqq. (Eng. Transl.). Cfr. also Bishop 
HANNEBERG, Histoire de la Révélation Biblique, vol. i, p. 239 (Paris, 1856). 


398 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


§ 3. Principal Rules of Interpretation. 


1. General Rules ofInterpretation. As might natur- 
ally be expected, the practice of scriptural interpretation, 
like that of every other art, is submitted to general rules, the 
knowledge and use of which are of real value to any one 
who wishes to proceed safely or to become proficient in it. 
It would be easy to point out many such rules and to en- 
large on them at considerable length ; but for the sake of 
brevity, we shall set forth here only those which it behooves 
most the student to bear in mind, and confine ourselves to 
a few remarks concerning them. 

The first general principle which the interpreter of Holy 
Writ should realize and act upon, is fo follow the ordinary 
laws of human language. ‘This first rule has for its ground 
the very purpose which God had in view, when He employed 
human agents and human language for the composition of 
the sacred books. In thus acting, He clearly wished to 
adapt His-revelation to our modes of thought and of expres- 
sion, so that the biblical interpreter should ever consider 
the language used by the inspired writers as submitted to 
the ordinary laws of human language. ‘This inference had 
been distinctly realized many centuries ago by St. Augustine, 
when he said: “ Neque aliquo genere loquuntur Scripture 
quod in consuetudine humana non inveniatur, quia utique 


hominibus loquuntur;”’’ 


and its ground had been clearly 
set forth by St. Hilary of Poitiers, in the following words: 
‘“Sermo divinus secundum intelligentiz nostra consuetudi- 
nem naturamque se temperat, communibus rerum vocabulis 
ad significationem doctrine et institutionis aptatis. Nobis 
enim et non sibi loquitur Deus, atque ideo nostris utitur in 
loquendo.”’ ” 


A second law of interpretation, which is no less general 


1 De Trinitate, Book i, chap. xii (cfr. MiGne, Patr. Lat., vol. xlii, col. 837). 
2 Comm. on Ps. cxxi (Patr. Lat., vol. ix, col. 695). 


GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 399 


in its application, and which is certainly of more practical 
import than the one just given, prescribes ready conformity tc 
the decisions and even to the common sentiment of the Church. 
Whoever believes sincerely that the Church of God is “ the 
pillar and ground of the truth,” ’ 
any time to submit to the decisions of that same Church re- 


will feel no repugnance at 


garding the meaning of the Holy Scriptures. Most readily 
will he accept as the exact meaning of a passage, the 
sense which he will know to have been defined by the 
Church, whether this definition was made fosztive/y, as when 
the Council of Trent declared authoritatively that the words: 
“This is My body,” * mean that the body of Christ is really 
and substantially under the species of bread and wine; or 
only negatively, as when the same Council condemned as 
false the interpretation which sees in the words: ‘“ Whose 
sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose 
sins you shall retain, they are retained,” * a reference not to 
the power of remitting sins in the tribunal of penance, but 
only to the power of preaching the Gospel. 

Very willingly, too, will he comply with the most wise 
rule of interpretation, which the same Church of God first 
framed in the Council of Trent, and which it solemnly re- 
peated in the Council of the Vatican, viz.: that in matters 
of faith and morals the Catholic interpreter shall carefully 
abstain from ascribing to a passage a meaning which would 
be opposed to the common sentiment of the Church, because 
the Church has authority for judging of the true meaning of 
Holy Writ.’ 


2 UL Tani, TOI FS, 2 Matt. xxvi, 26. 3 John xx. 23. 

4 “Quoniam vero,” says the Council of the Vatican (Sess. iii, cap. 2, De Revelat.), “qua 
S. Tridentina Synodus de interpretatione divine Scripture ad coercenda petulantia in- 
genia decrevit, a quibusdam hominibus prave exponuntur, Nos, idem decretum renov- 
antes, hanc illius esse mentem declaramus, ut in rebus fidei et morum, ad edificationem 
doctrine Christiane pertinentium, is pro vero sensu Sacre Scripture habendus sit, 
quem tenuit actenet Sancta Mater Ecclesia, cujus est judicare de vero sensu et interpre- 
tatione Scripturarum Sacrarum, atque ideo nemini licere contra hunc sensum . . . ipsam 
Scripturam Sacram interpretari.’’ (Cfr. Concil. Trid. Sess. iv.) 


400 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Together with the obligation just referred to, and incum- 
bent on every Catholic interpreter to abide by the decisions 
and the common sentiment of the Church, the Fathers of 
Trent and of the Vatican enacted another rule, which may 
be considered as the third general principle of interpretation, 
although it apparently does little more than point out one of 
the practical manners in which the foregoing rule should be 
carried out. According to these two Ecumenical Councils, 
the Catholic interpreter is strictly bound in his interpretation 
of the sacred text, zot Zo go against the unanimous consent of 
the Fathers of the Church in matters which appertain to 
Catholic belief and practice. Evidently, whoever would not 
comply with the duty thus laid on him, could not be said to 
interpret Holy Writ in the sense admitted by the Church of 
God, since she has endorsed once for all the sense which has 
commended itself to the mind of all her great leaders in the 
early ages, of all her authorized exponents of true faith and 
pure morality. On the other hand, in framing this general 
rule, the Fathers of Trent and of the Vatican never intended 
to bind us to accept blindly the various senses which the 
very best commentators of past ages have proposed regard- 
ing even dogmatic or moral passages; a good proof of it 
is found in the fact that it is the wsanzmous consent of the 
Fathers of the Church that is declared to be an authority 
by which it shall be our duty to abide. 

The last general rule of interpretation to be mentioned 
here, is 40 fake as a guide the analogy of faith, in passages 
whose sense is not expressly determined either by the au- 
thority of the Church or by that of the Fathers. This rule 
is well set forth by Dixon’ in the following terms: “ By 
analogy in general is meant a certain likeness and agreement. 
By the analogy of faith is meant the agreement which sub- 
sists between all the parts of the Christian doctrine ;. in 


1 A General Introduction to the Holy Scriptures, vol. i, p. 198, sq. (Baltimore, 1853). 


GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION, 4ol 


other words, between all the parts of the deposit of faith. 
. . . We must, therefore, when engaged in the interpretation 
of Scripture, always remember that there is a body of doc- 
trine taught by the Church, part of which she derives from 
the written, and part from the unwritten, Word; and that we 
must take care that with this body of doctrine, no interpre- 
tation given by us to Scripture shall be ever found to clash 

. In reality, from the earliest days of the Christian 
Church, the liberty of the interpreter of Scripture was 
limited in this way. For no part of the New Testament, 
(and this can be easily shown in the introduction to each of 
the books of it), was written with the view that infidels 
should learn the Christian faith by reading it; but all the 
parts or books of it were written in order that those who 
had already received the faith might be more fully instructed 
and confirmed in the faith, and induced to regulate their 
lives in accordance with their faith. Such being the case, 
the faithful to whom these writings were first committed 
must have been careful not to take any meaning from them, 
which would be at variance with the doctrine that they had 
been taught already.” 

Guided, therefore, by the analogy of faith, the Christian 
interpreter will refrain from taking strictly the words of 
many passages, because if so taken, they would yield a 
meaning inconsistent with the ascertained data of Catholic 
doctrine. He will not, for instance, interpret as recom- 
mending suicide these words of the book of Proverbs: 
“Put a knife to thy throat:”’ nor will he look upon 
the following passage of the Epistle to the Romans: 
“ Whom God will, He endureth;”* as expressing the 
erroneous doctrine that the Almighty arbitrarily and by a 
positive act of His power hardens the heart of obdurate 
sinners. 


1 Prov. xxiii, 2. 2 Rom. ix, 18, 


402 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


2. Special Rules of Interpretation Regarding 
the Literal and the Typical Sense. Beside the gen- 
eral principles of interpretation which have been thus far 
exposed, there are a few other rules, which though less gen- 
eral in their character, should be well known and distinctly 
kept in mind by the student who undertakes to explain any 
book of the Bible. Some of these refer to the /fera/ sense, 
that is, to the sense which the sacred writer intended to con- 
vey when he used his words either in a proper or in a meta- 
phorical acceptation. The first rule in this connection is to 
ascertain by every available means, such as familiarity with 
Hebrew and Greek, extensive use of the ancient versions, 
knowledge of comparative philology, reference to parallel 
passages, etc., the various meanings, proper or metaphorical, 
in which the words may have been employed by the inspired 
writers. Next comes the duty to determine whether the 
words in a given passage should be taken in their proper, 
or, on the contrary, in their metaphorical acceptation. For 
this purpose, two general rules should be borne in mind: 
(1) the words of Holy Writ must be taken in their proper 
sense, unless it be necessary to have recourse to their meta- 
phorical meaning, and this becomes necessary only when 
the proper acceptation would yield a sense evidently incor- 
rect, or manifestly opposed to the authority of tradition or to 
the decisions of the Church as already explained; (2) the 
words of Scripture can be taken in their metaphorical sense 
only in so far as this agrees both with the usage of the time 
at which the writer lived and with the laws of the language 
he employed. For an author writing at a given period of 
history, and in a special language, naturally conforms to the 
genius of that language and uses words or sentences in pre- 
cisely the same figurative sense as the one attached to them 
by his contemporaries. Finally, after the interpreter has de- 


GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 403 


cided in which general manner—properly or metaphorically 
—the words in question should be taken, he must endeavor 
to determine which of the many precise meanings, either 
proper or metaphorical, has been directly and immediately 
intended by the writer. With a view to this, he must pay 
special attention to (1) the syntax and idioms of the original 
languages, and particularly of the Hebrew; (2) the subject- 
matter, that is, the topic of which the author is treating, and 
which oftentimes shows the sense which he attaches to a 
particular word or expression; (3) the context, i. e., the 
connection of one sentence with the preceding and with the 
subsequent parts of the same chapter, for it is beyond doubt 
that a meaning which is contrary to the context should be 
rejected, for it cannot be the true sense of the passage; (4) 
the scope or design which the author had in view, and in the 
unfolding of which he naturally made use of such words and 
phrases as were well suited to his purpose. Both the general 
and the special scopes, however, should be ascertained, so as 
to make it sure which precise meaning is best in harmony with 
them; (5) the historical circumstances of time, place, etc., 
in the midst of which the author wrote; for in writing he 
used the words in the sense received by his contemporaries, 
supposed as known to them a certain number of customs, 
facts, etc., and consequently alluded to them in a manner 
which is now intelligible only to those well acquainted with 
‘the same historical circumstances ; (6) the parallel passages, 
i. e., such as have some degree of resemblance in style, rep- 
resentation, etc., inasmuch as they naturally exhibit coinci- 
dences of sentiment and expression, etc., which will enable 
us to catch the meaning of those that are obscure by means 
of those that are less so; (7) the poetical parallelism, either 
synonymous or antithetic, which is one of the best means to 
discover the genuine sense of an expression in the poetical 


404 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


books of the Bible;* (8) the renderings which have been 
adopted by the ancient versions or by the best commenta- 
tors of Holy Writ. 

The principal rules not to be lost sight of in connection 
with the Zyfzca7 sense are: (1) not to be preoccupied by the 
idea of finding everywhere a typical sense ; (2) to recognize 
a typical sense only in passages where Holy Scripture or 
tradition have admitted one, or where the resemblance be. 
tween the type and the antitype is true and striking; (3) 
not to consider the typical sense as a valid argument in 
matters of faith or morals, unless it be theologically certain. 


1 For details, cfr. CHAuvin, Lecons d’ Introduction Générale, p. 508, sq.; V1GOUROUx, 
Manuel Biblique, vol. ii, n. 590, sqq. 


SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER XVII. 


History or BrsyicaL INTERPRETATION AMONG THE JEWS. 


1. Their Founder: Esdras (the Early Scribes). 


i: 
2. The Talmudic School and its Exegesis. 


THE RABBINIC 





3. Schools of the Karaites and the Kabalists (Methods 





SCHOOLS OF 4 and Principal Interpreters). 
IN TERPRETA- ( Theological (General Features ; 
4. The Modern 4 Leading Rabbis). 
TION. Schools : Critical (Mendelssohn). 
a pa ea 
II. 
. Origin and Object of Hellenistic Interpretation. 
THE 
2, The Allegorical ( Aristobulus. 
HELLENISTIC School of 2 Philo (Rules and Extent of his 
Alexandria : Allegorism). 
SCHOOL. 


III. 


THE JEWISH | 1, Importance and Difficulty of a Comparison be- 


tween them. 
INTERPRETA- 


tion adopted by Our Lord? 


TESTAMENT 


TION AND THE ae 2. How far were the Jewish Methods of Interpreta- 
| 3. Exegetical Methods of the New Testament Writers, 
[ 


WRITINGS. 


405 


CLUAP Tain enV LT 


HISTORY OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AMONG THE JEWS. 
§ 1. Lhe Rabbinic Schools of Interpretation. 


1. Esdras and the Early Scribes. ‘The history of 
early Biblical Interpretation among the Jews is shrouded in 
no less obscurity than the gradual formation of their sacred 
literature itself. Long before the time of Esdras (fifth 
cent. B.C.), there existed in Israel men who, side by side 
with the prophets, were considered as the authorized expo- 
nents of the will of Yahweh, and whose business it was to in- 
terpret the national laws and to apply them to individual 
cases. In point of fact, several of the sacred writings com- 
posed before the Babylonian exile speak of priests and lay- 
men as intrusted with the interpretation and application of 
the theocratic laws,’ but they nowhere give details concern- 
ing the precise method that was followed in the explanation 
of the sacred text. 

In the absence of such details, and in view of the fact 
that Esdras is called in Holy Writ “the Scribe,” “a ready 
scribe in the law,” who “had prepared his heart to see the 
law of Yahweh and to do and to teach in Israel the com- 
mandments and judgments,” and who is spoken of by the 
Persian king, Artaxerxes, as “the most learned scribe of 
the law of the God of heaven,” ® 
that Jewish tradition has ever looked upon Esdras as the 
founder of the rabbinical schools of interpretation. Most 
justly indeed is he still considered as such, both by Jewish 


it is not surprising to find 


1 Cfr. Deuter. xvi, 18-20 ; xvii, 8-12; Micheas iii, 9-11 ; Sophon. iii, 3. 
2 Esdras vii, 6, 10-12. 


406 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AMONG THE JEWS. 407 


and by Christian scholars, inasmuch as his aim to make _ his 
fellow-Jews comply perfectly with all the regulations of the 
law became the one aim of the scribes and rabbis who came 
after him. Far from being satisfied with simply interpreting 
into Aramaic the passages of the Zorah, which 1ad just been 
read in Hebrew in the public services of the synagogues, 
the early scribes entered into developments whose object 
was to show how the Mosaic precepts could apply to every 
minute detail of life. “ The wisdom of the scribes,” says, 
rightly, W. R. Smith,’ “consisted of two parts, which in 
Jewish terminology were respectively called Halacha and 
Haggada. Halacha was legal teaching, systematized legal 
precept, while Haggada was doctrinal and practical admoni- 
tion, mingled with parable and legend. But of these two 
parts, the Halacha,—that is, the system of rules applying 
the Pentateuchal law to every case of practice and every 
detail of life,—was always the chief thing.” 

It was an arduous task for the early scribes to evolve 
from the written law of Moses, Halachic rules that would 
apply to all the cases of the private, domestic, and public 
life of Israel. More difficult still was it to show that the 
unwritten or oral law, whose full authority they proclaimed, 
and which consisted partly of old religious and national 
customs and usages, partly of decrees and ordinances more 
or less recently enacted, to meet the ever-varying exigencies 
of time and place, was founded on or even harmonized with 
the Pentateuchal law. Hence it was only natural that, at 
times, the scribes should strain the text before them, in 
their attempts to provide an established law or custom with 
a biblical support.* It was only natural, too, that the prim- 
itive Halacha and Haggada methods of interpretation should 
be gradually modified; and in point of fact, the Fesha?, or 


1 The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, Lect. iii, p. 44, sq. (2d Edition, 1892). 
2 Cfr. Mrevziner, Introduction to the Talmud, p. 120, sq. 


408 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


the plain interpretation of a scriptural law or passage in its 
immediate literal sense, grew out. of the Halacha ; while the 
Derash, or more or less artificial explanation of a passage in 
a mystical or allegorical sense, may be considered as a spe- 
cies of the Haggada. 

The most eminent among the early scribes were Antig- 
onus of Socho, a disciple of Simon the Just (fourth century 
B.C.) ; Joseph ben Johanan, who belonged to the epoch of 
the Machabean wars of Independence ; Nathan of Arbela, 
who lived under John Hyrcanus ; Abtalion, a contemporary of 
Hyrcanus II ; Hillel and Shammai, contemporaries of Herod 
the Great. (Itsis.to Hilleli(pnroma-D.)) that |ewishetra- 
dition ascribes the first framing of the rules to be observed in 
the interpretation of the law. He reduced them to seven 
principles which have been called a kind of “rabbinical 
logic ;”” but they were enlarged later on to thirteen, by 
Rabbi Ismael (2d cent. a. D.).’ 


2. The Talmudic School and its Exegesis. The 
system of hermeneutics originated by the ancient scribes was 
naturally kept up and developed by the Jewish teachers 
who came immediately after them, and who mostly belonged 
to the sect of the Pharisees, Like the Pharisees, these ew 
teachers looked upon the law embodied in the Pentateuch 
as the rule of life of Israel, on the condition, however, that 
this written law should be commented upon and explained 
by means of the unwritten law or “ tradition of the an- 
cients.” * In reality, they very often explained away the 
most obvious meaning of the sacred text through their 
subtle casuistry, “ making void,” as Our Lord declares, “ the 
commandment of God for their tradition.” * 


1 These rules are well stated and illustrated in Mrevziner, loc. cit., p. 122, sqq. 
Cfr. also ScniirER, The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, where the question of 
Scribism is fully treated (Second Division, vol. i, p. 305, sqq., Engl. Transl.), 

2 Matt. xv, 2. 

3 Matt. xv, 6, see also verse 3. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AMONG THE JEWS, 409 


As time went on, and as these legal interpretations, more 
or less foreign to the true sense of the Mosaic law, greatly 
multiplied, especially with a view to adapt the life of the 
Jews to the strange conditions which were entailed by the 
ruin of Jerusalem and its Temple, a really independent law 
was formed, although it continued to claim the Pentateuch 
as its basis. Those who contributed most towards its form- 
ation were Rabbi Aqiba, who codified the oral law ; Rabbi 
Ismael, who placed it on a logical basis; Rabbi Eliezer, who 
amplified it exegetically ; and Rabbi Juda Hanasi, called 
simply Rabét by way of eminence, who is said to have com- 
pleted the Mishnah compilation, and to have made it the 
authoritative code of the traditional law, to the exclusion of 
all similar compilations by former teachers.? The principles 
of the Halacha and of the Haggada methods which they 
followed in their work are admirably summed up in the 
following passage of Vogué:* “ Their forty-five rules may 
all be reduced to two fundamental considerations: (1) Noth- 
ing is fortuitous, arbitrary or indifferent in the Word of God. 
Pleonasm, ellipsis, grammatical anomaly, transposition of 
words or facts, everything is calculated, everything has its 
end, and would teach us something. ... (2) As the image 
of its author, who is one by Himself and manifold in His 
manifestations, the Bible conceals in a single word a crowd 
of thoughts ; many a phrase, which appears to express a 
simple and single idea, is susceptible of diverse senses and 
numberless interpretations independent of the fundamental 
difference between literal exegesis and free exegesis ; in 
short, as the Talmud says, after the Bible itself, the divine 
word is like fire which divides itself into a thousand sparks, 
or a rock which breaks into numberless fragments under the 


1 Cfr. Theodore REINACH, Histoire des Israélites, p. 13, sqq. 

2 For details, see FARRAR, History of Interpretation, p. 68, sqq. 

3 1,, Vocu#, Histoire de la Bible et de l’Exégése Biblique jusqu’a nos jours, p. 169 
(Paris, 1881). 


410 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


hammer that attacks it. These two points of view, I repeat, 
are the soul of the Midrash’ in general: the latter above 
all serves as the common basis of the Halacha and the 
Haggada, and it explains, better than any other theory, the 
long domination of the Midrash exegesis in the synagogue.” 

It is under the influence of these general principles, that 
the text of the Talmud or Mishnah was first written down 
and next commented upon in the rabbinical schools of the 
East and of the West. It is under the same influence that 
the leading commentaries, or Midrashim, on most books of 
the Hebrew Bible, were composed during the first five cen- 
turies of our era.’ 


3. Schools of the Karaites and the Kabalists. 
We should not suppose, however, that the founders and 
expounders of the Talmud, who were the worthy successors 
of the Pharisees in their interpretation of Holy Writ, were 
without vigorous opponents of their methods. All along, as 
a matter of fact, they found such adversaries in the Karattes, 
men who, like the Sadducees of old, rejected all oral tradi- 
tions, and who maintained, like the Protestants at a later 
date, that the Sacred Scriptures were plain in themselves, 
and should be understood by each believer, independently of 
human additions. Setting aside the arbitrary and fanciful 
traditions of the Talmud, they were chiefly concerned with 
the text itself ; and in this way they truly promoted the 
grammatical and linguistic study of Holy Writ, especially 
toward the middle of the seventh century, when they began 
to exercise a wide and deeply felt influence. After the 
eleventh century, their method gradually ceased to count as 
an important element in Jewish exegesis, and at the present 


1 The word “ AZidrash ”? means “ research,” artificial interpretation. 
2 The names of the principal Midrashim are given by Vicouroux, Manuel Biblique, 
vol. i, n. 201. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AMONG THE JEWS. 4AIlI 


day they are but small local communities in Lithuania and 
Crimean 

A very different attitude towards the Old Testament was 
assumed by the Xadalists, the Jewish theosophists of the 
Middle Ages. Far from looking upon the sacred text as 
fully intelligible to every one, they contended that every 
letter of the Bible contained a secret sense for the initiated 
in the mysteries of the Aaéda/a, or tradition come down 
from God through Adam and Abraham. ‘Thus did they count 
for little the literal sezse, while they attached the greatest 
importance to the /e/ters and words of Holy Writ, which they 
submitted to the most arbitrary combinations to make them 
yield their so-called hidden sense. One of their means to 
pursue such fanciful interpretation, was the Vofarikon’? or 
the process of reconstructing a word by using the initials of 
many, or a sentence by using all the letters of a single word 
as so many initials of other words. The famous symbol 
iy0os standing for “Iyc0ds NXprords Oeod Vids Swryp, is an in- 
stance of a word thus interpreted by the early Christians. 
No less puerile were the other two Kabalistic methods of 
interpretation, the Ghematria andthe Zemura. The former, 
whose name is a corrupted form of the Greek word Geome- 
tria, consisted in the use of the numerical values of the letters 
of a word for purposes of comparison with other words 
which give the same or similar combinations of numbers. 
Thosyn, Gen oxlix, to “ Shiloh come,” is equivalent to 358, 
which is also the numerical value of Mashiah (mv): hence 
it is inferred that Shiloh is identical with the Messias. The 
latter method of interpretation, the Zemura or “ change,” is 
the art of discovering the supposed hidden sense of the text 

1Cfr. art. CARAITE, by E. Livesour, in Vigouroux, Dictionnaire de la Bible; see 
also REINACH, loc. cit., p. 55, sqq.; Briccs, Introd. to the Study of Holy Scripture, 
P. 433- 


2 The name is borrowed from Moftarius “a shorthand writer,’’? because such writers 
used letters to stand for words. 


412 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


by an interchange of letters. For instance, in Exodus xxiii, 
23 “my angel? (1281) is transposed into Michael : whence 
it is inferred that the angel of Jehovah spoken of in the 
passage is the archangel Michael. ‘“ The commonest appli- 
cation of Temurah consists, however, in substituting for 
each letter in a word the letter which stands in an equivalent 
ordersinsthewotger shalfvorethe alphabet, omen pemcuter 
interest of the method lies in the fact that there seem to be 
mstances Of it ain ‘the Bible’ Ctr, lercunuxxy, zor ules i 
It goes without saying that such artificial methods of in- 
terpretation, however ancient, could hardly ever yield valu- 
able results in exegesis, although some Christian scholars of 
the end of the fifteenth century showed themselves very eager 
to become acquainted with Kabalistic methods and writings. 
“The most famous Kabalists are Moses ben Nachman, 
author of Faith and Hope; Joseph of Castile, author of 
Gates of Light; Moses of Cordova, author of the Garden of 
Pomegranates ; Isaac Luria, author of the Book of Metempsy- 
chosis; and Chajim Vital, who wrote’ the Zree of Life.” * 
But even the best work of these Kabalists will ever be more 
useful to Jewish scholars than to Christian interpreters. 
Much more valuable for Catholic commentators of Holy 
Writ are the works of the Karaites, Jacob ben Ruben 
(twelfth century), Aaron ben Joseph (} 1294), and Aaror 
ben Elias (fourteenth century), for their method of exposi- 
tion is much more scientific. The same thing must also be 
said of the leading Talmudic commentators of the Middle 
Ages, among whom may be mentioned Rabbi Saadia Gaon 
(1 942), ‘the pioneer of careful exegetical writers,” as he has 
been called; Jarchi (Rashi) (f 1105), the founder of the 
French school of Talmudic interpretation ; ben Ezra (f 1168), 


1 FARRAR, History of Interpretation, p. 103. Cfr. ViGouRoux, Dictionnaire de la 
Bible, art. Athbasch, p. 1210, sq. 
* Ed. Reuss, in Schaff-Herzog, Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, art. Cabala. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AMONG THE JEWS. 413 


so remarkable for his “literal and painstaking exegesis ” ; 
Moses Maimonides (f 1208), who, as we are told, “ sought to 
establish the right of free examination as against the abso- 
and, lastly, David Kimchi 
(f 1240), who rendered great services to Hebrew philology 
and to the grammatico-historical interpretation of Holy Writ. 


lute principle of authority ”’; * 


4. Modern Rabbinical Schools. . Treading in the foot- 
steps of such good exegetical writers, the Talmudic scholars 
of the fifteenth and following centuries developed into what 
has been called the Rabbinic Zheological school of interpre- 
tation. This name has been given to a series of rabbis re- 
markable for “their progressiveness, happily blended with 
prudence and moderation, for their genuine piety, for their 
exegesis, equally foreign to the unbridled license of free 
thought and to the arbitrary and puerile methods of false 


29 2 


mysticism. Endowed with this truly ¢Aeological temper, 
they studied the sacred text in the light of grammar and 
philology, and carefully examined the context and parallel 
passages. As the outcome of their laborious efforts, biblical 
exegesis among the Jews became more and more sober, 
literal and accurate. 

Among the best interpreters of this school may be men- 
tioned : (1) Abrabanel (1437-1508), who made use of Chris- 
tian writings, rejected Kabalism, employed good grammatical 
methods, and brought his wide experience as a traveller to 
bear on the interpretation of the historical books; (2) Elias 
Levita (1471-1549), who wrote grammatical treatises greatly 
valued by Richard Simon, and who has been much praised 
by Gesenius ; (3) Azarias de Rossi (1514-1577), who ‘“ com- 
pared the various Talmudic writings with those of contem- 
porary pagan authors, and who shared with Richard Simon 

1 FARRAR, loc. cit., p. 463. Cfr. also Kerz, Introduction to the Old Testament, 


vol. ii, p. 383, sq. (Engl. Transl.). 
2 VoGurE, Histoire de la Bible et de ’Exégése Biblique, p. 282, sq. 


414. GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


the honor of being the precursor of the recent school of 
Biblical Criticism.” * 

Less sound, indeed, but far more brilliant than the Theo- 
logical, was the CritzcaZ school, started in the eighteenth 
century by Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), whom the Jews 
still call ‘the third Moses.’”’* As a powerful thinker and an 
elegant writer, he acquired in Germany, his native country, 
a prestige of which he availed himself skilfully for raising 
the social and intellectual level of his fellow-religionists. 
His commentaries on Ecclesiastes, and on the Rabbinic 
treatise, M/iloth Higayon (logical terminology), in which he 
reacted powerfully against the antiquated methods of the 
Talmudic schools, exercised a deep influence upon the minds 
of the young Jewish students. Far greater still was the in- 
fluence of his critical method and religious views upon the 
readers of his German translation of the Pentateuch, which 
was accompanied by the grammatical notes of such con- 
genial co-workers as Dudno and Hartwig Wessely. In vain 
did the heads of the old Jewish orthodoxy oppose him; he 
completed his work on the Pentateuch, and even added to it 
a German commentary on the Psalms and on the Canticle of 
Canticles. Had Mendelssohn been less careful to connect 
his own work with that of the Massoretes of old, there is 
little doubt that, despite all his literary ability, the Jewish 
rabbis of Germany would not have undergone his influence 
to anything like the extent to which they did. In point of 
fact, the Gerinan rabbis, together with their flocks, became 
better acquainted with the German style and thought of 
their century through these translations of the greatest living 
representative of the Jewish race. They learned little by 
little one of the lessons oftenest inculcated by Mendelssohn, 


1 REINACH, loc. cit., p. 217, sq. 


* Cfr. F. LicHTENBERGER, Encyclopédie des Sciences Religieuses, vol. xii, pp. 
656-658. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AMONG THE JEWS. 415 


viz., that, “the law is not identical with religion, and that 
it simply requires outward observances calculated to pre- 
serve religious ideas, without interfering with the progressive 
development of such ideas.” ' 

Mendelssohn’s interpretation of Holy” Writ “is grammati- 
cal, close, learned. His criticism is moderate, acute, con- 
scientious. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that, 


with his literary talent and social influence, he succeeded in 


99 2 


founding a school, which, however short-lived, was brilliant, 
and impressed deeply Jewish thought. His principal disci- 
ples were, beside Hartwig Wessely, already mentioned, Isaac 
Euchel, David Friedlander, Marcus Herz, Wolffsohn, etc. 

A few additional words will suffice in connection with 
the contemporary rabbinical school of interpretation, 
which, because it is even more advanced than that of 
Mendelssohn, we may venture to call by the name of 
liberal. Its representatives, such men as Munk, Luzzato, 
Zunz, Geiger, Fiirst, etc., are all leading scholars, who will- 
ingly enough avail themselves of the great biblical works 
published by Christians, and whose exegetical publications, 
bearing the stamp of true scholarship, deserve to be utilized 
by Catholic commentators. The method applied by this 
school to the interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures is 
critical, grammatical, and historical. 

Side by side with this great school of Jewish thought and 
criticism, and in opposition to it, the old Talmudic schools 
still live with their antiquated methods. 


§ 2. The Hellenistic School of Interpretation. 


1. Origin and Object of Hellenistic Interpreta- 
tion. It will be noticed that in the brief historical sketch 
1. ScHERDIN, art. Judaisme Moderne, in LicuTENBERG’s Encyclopédie, vol. xii, 


Pp. 659. 
2 CHAuvIN, loc. cit., p. 563. 


416 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


of the schools of interpretation among the Jews which has 
been given, no mention was made of the very important 
Jewish school of exegesis, which is commonly designated 
under the name of the /Ze//enistic school. This was done 
with a view not to interrupt the description of the various 
stages through which Biblical Interpretation passed in the 
leading rabbinical schools, all more or less intimately con- 
nected with Esdras and the early scribes. Again, as the 
Hellenistic school and its hermeneutical methods have had 
confessedly a direct and considerable bearing upon the early 
Christian schools of interpretation, it seemed advisable to 
treat of that great school immediately before studying the 
history of exegesis in the Christian Church. 

As its name indicates, the Hellenistic school of Biblical 
Interpretation took its origin among the Jews of the West- 
ern or Greek Dispersion. ‘The Hellenists, or Greek- 
speaking Jews, having come, and living, in contact with 
Hellenic thought and religion, were gradually led, for apolo- 
getical purposes, to prove that the exalted moral and re- 
ligious views of the Greek philosophers, and particularly of 
Plato, were ultimately traceable to the divine Revelation 
contained in the sacred books of the Jews.’ All the wisdom 
of the Greeks, it was contended, had been borrowed, in a 
distant past, from the books of Moses rendered into Greek 
long before the work of the Septuagint;* and in conse- 
quence it was assumed that it could be shown how all the 
best sayings of the pagan philosophers had been taken from 
the writings of the Jewish lawgiver. This was just as easy 
an assumption as the one made by the early Jewish scribes 
of whom we spoke above, as claiming for the whole 
oral law a Mosaic support. On the other hand, the proof 


1 Cfr. ViGouroux, Dictionnaire de Ja Bible, art. Alexandrie (Ecole d’), p. 359. 

2 We refer to the fiction of Aristobulus, which asserted the existence of a previous and 
much older translation of the law (Cfr. Vicouroux, ibid., p. 360; FARRAR, History of 
Interpretation, p. 129, sa.). 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AMONG THE JEWS. 417 


of the former was just as hard as that of the latter assump- 
tion; and, in point of fact, while the early Palestinian 
scribes were compelled to have recourse to strained con- 
structions of the Hebrew Bible to substantiate their posi- 
tion, the Hellenistic apologists were, in like manner, led to 
put upon the Greek Septuagint Text meanings of their own, 
through what has been called the ad/egorical method of 
interpretation. 


2. The Allegorical School of Alexandria: Philo. 
The possibility of extracting Greek philosophy from the 
Pentateuch was maintained, apparently for the first time, by 
the philosopher Aristobulus, a Jewish writer who lived in 
Alexandria under Ptolemy VI (Philometor) (181-146 B.c.). 
As those scholars who after him made up the school of 
Alexandria, he maintained his position “ partly by the mod- 
ification of anthropomorphic expressions, partly by reading 
new conceptions between the lines of the ancient docu- 
ments.”” In answer to a question of Ptolemy, Aristobulus 
told him that Scripture was not to be literally understood. 
The “hand” of God means His might; the “speech” of 
God implies only an influence on the soul of man. The 
‘standing’ of God means the organization and immovable 
stability of the world. The “coming down” of God has 
nothing to do with time or space. The “fire”? and the 
“trumpet ” of Sinai are pure metaphors corresponding to 
nothing external. The six days’ creation merely implies 
continuous development. The seventh day indicates the 
cycle of hebdomads which prevails among all living things— 
whatever that piece of Pythagorean mysticism may chance 
to mean. Aristobulus, however, confined allegory within 
reasonable limits, and, as Dean Stanley has said, if he be . 
held responsible for the extravagances of Philo... he 


may also claim the glory of having led the way in the path 
26 


418 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


trodden by all who have striven to discriminate between the 
eternal truths of Scripture and the framework, the imagina- 
tive vesture, in which those truths are set forth. 

‘Here, then, we trace to its source one of the tiny rills of 
exegesis, which afterwards swelled the mighty stream of 
Philonian and Christian allegory.” ' 

It is highly probable that between Aristobulus and Philo 
there lived several Jewish writers who adopted the allegori- 
cal method which has just been described.* Nevertheless, 
the man whose name has become most intimately connected 
with the allegorical Jewish school of Alexandria is unques- 
tionably Philo, a contemporary of Our Lord (he died about 
50 A.D.) He it was who formulated the rules of allegorical 
interpretation. He it was, also, who applied them with con- 
sistency in his various writings. He it was, finally, whose 
influence is especially recognizable upon the allegorical 
writers of the Christian school of Alexandria of whom it will 
be soon question. 

According to him, “there are three rules to determine 
when the literal sense is excluded: (1) when anything is 
said unworthy of God; (2) when it presents an insoluble 
difficulty ; (3) when the expression is allegorical.’ * 

To these general principles Philo added twenty-three rules 
of the allegorical method, which Dr. Briggs * arranges hap- 
pily under the four heads of (1), Grammatical Allegory ; (2) 
Rhetorical Allegory ; (3) Allegory by means of new combina- 
tions (a method fully wrought out by the Kabalists at a later 
date) ; (4) Symbolism, which is of three kinds: of numbers, 
of things, and of names. 

One is truly surprised when he realizes the extent to 


1 FARRAR, loc. Cit., p. 130, sq- 

2 VicourRovxX, loc. cit., p. 360. 

3 Briaas, Introduction to the Study of Holy Scripture, p. 434, sq. 
* Tbid., p. 435, 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AMONG THE JEWS. 419 


which this Alexandrian philosopher, who held the most rigid 
views of inspiration, did not hesitate to carry his allegorical 
method of interpretation. Men, things, historical facts, legal 
enactments, most important events, minute details, all things, 
in a word, may be taken as allegorical, as symbolizing now 
one thing and now another altogether different. Thus, 
the four rivers in the earthly Paradise are, according to him, 
the four cardinal virtues; the five cities of the Plain are the 
five senses. In the simple and straightforward passage 
about the land of promise, “cities” he takes to mean 
‘renerdl virtuesiee houses,” ‘“specialevutues ; 7’ “wells,”’ 
‘noble dispositions towards wisdom ; ” “ vineyards and olive- 
trees” imply “cheerfulness and light,” the fruits of a con- 
templative life. Again, Moses is intelligence; Aaron is 
speech ; Enoch is repentance ; Noe, righteousness; Abraham 
is virtue acquired by learning; Isaac is innate virtue; 
Lote istecensutntyee siiacl 1s) Sophistry, ‘etc., ‘etc. “As 
an example of the manifold meaning in which Philo takes 
the same object, we may give here, “the sun” which in one 
case is the understanding; in another, the bodily sense ; in 
another again, the Word of God; and in another, finally, 
God Himself. “In general, it may be said that hc admits 
the truth of the primeval Mosaic history, from the creation 
down to Abraham, only in its principal features, while he 
takes almost all the details to be purely allegorical. Thus, 
in the account of the creation of the world, only the creative 
act is with him historic truth, not the details; Adam is taken 
by him to be the first man; but the details of his history, 
such as the account of the trees in Paradise, of the serpent, 
of the expulsion, are mere symbols of things connected with 
the higher lites a.) 

And yet, strange to say, the hidden sense attained only by 
allegory is for Philo and his school the real sense intended 


! GrrGrER, Philo, quoted in Hed?, Introd. to the O. T. vol. ii, p. 389 (Engl. Transl.). 


420 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


by God. It is the sense designed indeed not for the uncul- 
tivated who are incapable of apprehending the divine wisdom, 
but for those who have raised themselves to a pure spiritual 
view of the Deity. ‘The allegorical method of interpreta- 
tion was in particular favor with the Essenes, and is sup- 
posed by some scholars to “ have left its traces in the pseud- 
epigraphs and apocryphal books that were composed in the 
meron Philo, 


§ 3. The Jewish Interpretation and the Writings of the 
New Testament. 


1. Importance and Difficulty of a Comparison 
between them. Whenitis borne in mind that the writings 
of the New Testament contain numerous quotations from the 
Old Testament; that they frequently represent what is said of 
events, persons, doctrines, etc., of the former Covenant as 
applicable in various ways to those of the Gospel dispensa- 
tion; that it seems antecedently probable that the Old Testa- 
ment should be quoted in the New according to the Jewish 
methods of the time; finally, that the manner in which the 
writings of the New Testament interpret the sacred books of 
the Old Law, must needs, and in point of fact, did, very con- 
siderably influence the Biblical Interpretation in subsequent 
ages, itis easy to understand something of the importance 
which attaches naturally to a comparison between the 
Jewish methods of Interpretation and those which may be 
discovered in the writings of the New Testament. This 
importance is further enhanced by the fact that for some 
time past, the question to determine the nature and prin- 
ciples of the New Testament interpretation as compared 
with the rabbinical and Hellenistic methods, has much en- 
gaged the attention of prominent biblical scholars, and has 
received from them different solutions. 


1 BRIGG, ibid., p. 435. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AMONG THE JEWS. 421 


It is true that these scholars would have probably reached, 
by this time, something like a fair agreement on this point, 
if they had all examined the question from a non-partisan 
point of view. It cannot be denied, however, that, apart 
from the bias unquestionably exhibited by many of them, 
the question in itself is a difficult one. In fact, owing to the 
practical impossibility—which has already been alluded to— 
of drawing a sharp distinction between the typical and the 
accommodative sense of some scriptural passages, it is 
highly probable that the precise relation between the rab- 
binical and Hellenistic methods of interpretation on the one 
hand, and those which may be noticed in the New Testa- 
ment writings on the other hand, will never be defined to the 
satisfaction of all parties concerned. Here we can hardly 
do more than to direct the attention of the student to this 
important question, and to state briefly what may be con- 
sidered as sure, or at least as fairly probable, positions in 
connection with it. 


2. How far were the Jewish Methods of Inter- 
pretation adopted by Our Lord? Whoever will ex- 
amine closely the manner in which Our Lord is reported in 
the Gospels as quoting the Scriptures of the Old Testament, 
will be led to the following conclusions regarding the extent 
to which He adopted the Jewish methods of interpretation 
prevalent in His time. Like His contemporaries, Jesus 
shows Himself acquainted with the “/era/ interpretation of 
the sacred text; as, for instance, when He answers the 
Tempter by quoting the words of the law: “ Not on bread 
alone doth man live, but on every word that comes from 
the mouth of God;”’ “ Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy 
God,” and “ Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him 
only shalt thou serve.”* On the other hand, He is perfectly 


1 Matt. iv, 4,7, Io. 


422 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


acquainted with the legal or Halacha method of interpreta- 
tion so prevalent among the Pharisees and scribes of His 
time, and He usually defeats these rabbinical opponents of 
His with their own weapons. ‘Thus, His line of argument 
in St. John x, 34-36 is an application of Hillel’s first rule of 
interpretation, viz.: the inference from the greater to the 
less.'. Again, in His discussion concerning the Sabbath 
law, as reported by St. Matthew (xii, 4-8), He seems to 
apply another rabbinical principle of the time (the sixth 
rule of Hillel), in virtue of which scriptural passages could 
be used to supplement one another. But while Jesus thus 
employs the Halacha method as best suited in controversy 
with His rabbinical adversaries, His favorite method of 
teaching the people is essentially the Haggada, or homileti- 
cal interpretation, which admits of parabolic and familiar cx- 
position. Our Lord’s use of parables to illustrate or suggest 
moral or religious truths is too well-known to require more 
than a passing mention here, though it is the most convincing 
proof of the fact that He freely adopted the Haggadic method 
of exposition in use among the Palestinian rabbis of His time. 
To this general proof we shall add but one particular in- 
stance, because of the vivid contrast it sets forth between 
the Halachic and Haggadic methods. In St. Luke xiii, 14, 
sqq., we read of the ruler of a synagogue as very angry at 
a miracle of healing which Jesus had performed on the 
Sabbath day in behalf of an infirm woman, and as promul- 
gating the dry Halachic rule: “Six days there are wherein 
you ought to work. In them, therefore, come and be healed, 
and not on the Sabbath day.” To this bald pronouncement, 
Jesus returned the following Haggadic reply: “ Ye hypo- 
crites, doth not every one of you, on the Sabbath day, loose 
his ox or his ass from the manger, and lead them to water? 


1 The seven rules of rabbinical interpretation formulated by Hillel have already been 
referred to. They are given in M1eLzrIner, Introduction to the Talmud, p. 123, sq. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AMONG THE JEWS. 423 


And ought not this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath 
bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on 
the Sabbath day?” 

Is it possible to go further and to admit with some con- 
temporary scholars, that Our Lord, besides adopting the 
general methods of the Palestinian rabbis, came into con- 
nection with the aZegorical method of the Alexandrian Jews, 
and argued from the text with something of Hellenistic 
freedom ? In answer to this question it may be said that, 
at times, Jesus seems almost to use the methods of the 
Hellenists ; as, for instance, when He applies to Himself, in 
what some take to be an accommodative sense, the prophecy 
Of Isalase nipiesda ees) Ville 3;7) and possibly Ps. cxvil, 
22-23.° Even in these passages, however, it remains pos- 
sible to admit that, instead of the accommodative sense, Our 
Lord simply applied to Himself the higher typical sense 
ever intended by the Holy Spirit, as He does unquestion- 
ably in other places. But be this as it may, it is beyond 
question that “‘He never employed any of the strange com- 
binations and fanciful reconstructions of the Sod (supposed 
mystical sense) of the Alexandrians, any more than the 
casuistry or hair-splitting Halacha of the scribes, or the idle 
tales and absurd legends of the Haggada.”’* 

A last and most important point to be noticed in connec- 
tion with Our Saviour’s method of interpreting Holy Writ, 
regards some features which are peculiarly His own.  Differ- 
ently from all His contemporaries, He delivered doctrines on 
His own authority for settling questions; as for example, 
when answering the Sadducees who had argued the impossi- 
bility of the resurrection, on the basis of a Mosaic statement, 
He said: “ When they arise from the dead, they shall neither 
marry nor be married ; but shall be as the angels of God in 


1 Cfr. Luke iv, 16-22. 2 Matt. xxi, 16. (Cfr. MALDoNATUS, in loc.) 
3 Matt. xxi, 42-44. 4 Bricocs, Introd. to the Study of Holy Scriptures, p. 441. 


424 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


* He even went farther, and contrasted His own 


heaven.” 
interpretation of the fundamental laws of the Decalogue 
with the traditional interpretation: ‘“ You have heard that it 
was said to them of old, thou shalt not kill. And whosoever 
shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say to 
you... .” In thus acting, “ Jesus interpreted divine laws 
from the point of view of the divine Lawgiver Himself. No 
human interpreter would be justified in following the Master. 
thither. Itis His sovereign prerogative so to interpret... . 
The rabbis interpreted the Scriptures to accord with the 
traditions of the elders; Jesus interpreted them to accord 
with the mind of God, their author. Hence, the character- 
istic authority with which He spoke; the freedom with 
which He added to the ancient Scriptures, and substituted 
a higher revelation for the lower, wherever it was found 
necessary.” * 


3. Exegetical Methods of the New Testament 
Writers. The foregoing remarks in regard to Our Lord’s 
methods of Biblical Interpretation, will dispense us with giv- 
ing many details concerning the exegetical methods of the 
New ‘Testament writers. Antecedently speaking, these 
writers would naturally use the text of the Old Testament 
in about the same manner as their Jewish or Hellenistic 
contemporaries, in order to draw therefrom arguments that 
might be considered as valid in the eyes of the Palestinian 
or Hellenistic Jews. It is likewise antecedently probable 
that as true disciples of the one Master, Christ, the New Tes- 
tament writers would adopt the same exegetical methods as 
He had Himself used during His mortal life. Weare not there- 
fore, surprised to find that, as a matter of fact, they all show 
themselves inclined to employ one or other of the methods of 
interpretation in vogue among their contemporaries, and are 


1 Matt. xxii, 30, 2 Briaas, ibid., pp. 440, 442. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AMONG THE JEWS. 425 


all clearly influenced by the methods of the One who “had 
opened the understanding of His disciples, that they might 
understand the Scriptures.” ’ 

The following scheme contains references to the principal 
passages of the New Testament where the inspired writers 
have been considered to incline towards the Hagvada, the 
Flalacha and the AVlegory methods of interpretation, re- 


spectively : 
Haggada: Halacha: Allegory : 
Matt. iii, 13-18.? Rom. iy, 3. Galat. iv, 24, sq. 
James li, 2, 'Sq.5 Vv, 1-17.08 «L Cor, 1x,9. I Cormsg.4: 
Rom. x, 15.3 II Cor. iti, 74 s Heb. vii. 
Heb. xi. Jas. ii, 8-13. Apoc. xiii, 18 ; xii, 1, sq 3 xvi, 


T2)s\ XV, TO; ete. 


As regards the manner in which the New Testament 
writers were influenced by the peculiar exegetical methods of 
their Master, the following words of Dr. Briggs deserve to 
be quoted: ‘‘ The Apostles were taught by Jesus to consider 
the old Covenant as a whole;°* to see it as a shadow, type 
and preparatory dispensation with reference to the new 
Covenant; to regard the substance and disregard the form. 
Hence, under the further guidance of the Holy Spirit they 
eliminated the temporal, local, and circumstantial forms of the 
old Covenant and gained the universal, eternal, and essential 
substance, and this they applied to the circumstances of the 
new Covenant of which they were called to be the expound- 
ers. They interpreted in accordance with the mind of the 
reigning Christ, as Jesus had interpreted in accordance with 
the mind of His Father. . . . This organic method of inter- 
pretation of Jesus and His Apostles is the true Christian 
method.” ° 

1 Luke xxiv, 45. 

2 Cfr. MALDONATUS, in loc. 

3 Cfr. VAN STEENKISTE, in Sti. Pauli Epistolas, vol. i, p. 162. 
4 Cfr. VAN STEENKISTE, ibid., p. 302. ; 


5 Cfr. Luke xxiv, 25,.44. 
6 Introduction to the Study of Holy Scripture, p. 446, sq. 


SYNOPSISVOR CHAPTER XVITE 


HIsTorRY OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN 


CHURCH. 


Section I. Before the Protestant Reformation. 


I. 
THE 
First THREE 


CENTURIES: 


Le if 
FROM 
THE FOURTH 
TO THE SIXTH 


CENTURY: 


jG ie 





Absap 
MIDDLE 


AGES: 








. The Apostolic Fathers (Aim and Methods of In- 


terpretation). 


. The Early Apologists (St. Justin and St. Irenzus). 


3. The School of ( Its Origin. 


The Allegorism of Clement and 
Alexandria : l Origen, 





Antioch (Principal Characteristics 


. The Eastern and Leading Scholars). 


Edessa (Aphraates and St. Ephrem). 
Schools of | Caesarea (the Cappadocian 
Fathers), 


2. The Latin Fathers: (St. Hilary; St. Ambrose; 


St. Jerome; St. Augustine). 





1, Before the Scholastic Period (the Compilers of 


the “ Catenz,” and the leading Interpreters). 


2. Scholastic Exegesis : Its Principal Characteristics. 


3. The Renaissance and its Biblical Scholars. 


426 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


HISTORY OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN 
CHURCH. 


SrecTION I. BEFORE THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 


§ 1. The First Three Centuries. 


1. The Apostolic Fathers. As might naturally be 
expected, the early Fathers of the Church trod, in several 
ways, in the footsteps of the first preachers of Christianity 
as regards their treatment of Holy Writ. Like the Apostles 
and the New Testament writers, they did not aim at any- 
thing like a continuous or systematic exposition of the Holy 
Scriptures, and only occasionally did they quote the sacred 
text in their epistles or other extant works. Again, from 
their few quotations from, or allusions to, Holy Writ, we 
may infer that, like their predecessors, the Apostolic 
Fathers adopted the manner of understanding the Sacred 
Scriptures that was prevalent in their time, and among those 
to whom they wrote. 

Thus as St. Clement of Rome destined his letter to the 
faithful of Corinth, who were mostly Hellenistic converts, 
he naturally used, beside the literal sense of Holy Writ, 
what seems to be the a@/egorical method of exposition. A 
clear proof of this is found in the twelfth chapter, where St. 
Clement endows Rahab with the spirit of prophecy, because 
by the scarlet cord hung out of her window, she signified 
that redemption should flow by the blood of Christ to all 
who believe and hope in God. Much more frequent and 

427 


428 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


striking is the use of the same method of interpretation in 
the epistle ascribed to St. Barnabas. The one purpose of 
the writer is to find throughout the Old ‘Testament some- 
thing which, in some way or other, he may refer to Christ 
or to Christianity ; and, accordingly, he interprets in the 
strangest manner, in a thoroughly Philonian fashion, the 
most natural details of Jewish history.’ For example, after 
quoting Leviticus xx, 24, in which God promises to the 
Hebrews the possession of a land flowing with milk and 
honey, he says: “ Now learn what is the spiritual meaning 
of this. It is as if it had been said, put your trust in Jesus, 
who shall be manifested to you inthe flesh. For man is the 
earth which suffers; inasmuch as out of the substance 
of the earth Adam was formed.” Again, in the eighth 
chapter of the epistle of Barnabas we find a fanciful 
interpretation of the sacrifice of the buck-goat described 
in Leviticus (chap. xvi). In like manner, the entire 
ninth chapter of the epistle is devoted to something like a 
Kabalistic explanation of circumcision. According to the 
writer, Abraham, who was the first to bring in circumcision, 
circumcised 318 men of his house, because this number in 
Greek lettérs \(J/=10; “H=8) T3200) 1:e.,° 318), signiies 
Jesus (/// being the first two letters of the word /yaoos) and 
the figure of His cross (ie., 7). Such, he adds, is the 
mystery of three letters received by Abraham ; and this cir- 
cumcision pointed to the death of Jesus as its object. ‘ No 
one,” says he again, “ ever learned from me a more genuine 
truth ; but I know that you are worthy of it.” ° 


2. The Early Apologists. This manifest influence 
of Philo’s method of Biblical Interpretation upon one of the 


1 Cfr. Vicouroux, Manuel Biblique, vol. i, n. 204. 
2.Cfr. Davipson, On Sacred Hermeneutics, p. 72; FARRAR, History of Interpreta~- 
tion, p. 167, sqq. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 429 


earliest Christian interpreters of Holy Writ, is also unmis- 
takable in connection with the first Christian apologist, St. 
Justin. Stafting from a ground common to him and to his 
opponents, viz., that the Old Testament writers spoke in 
mysteries, types and symbols, this illustrious Father of the 
Church arrives sometimes at strange explanations of the 
sacred text through his application of the allegorical 
method. This happens both in his Second Apology and his 
Dialogue with Trypho. In fact, in this latter work, as St. 
Justin is constantly giving strained meanings to the 
scriptural passages he appeals to (as for example, when he 
states that the wrestling of Jacob with the angel denotes the 
temptation of Jesus;* his double marriage with Lia and 
Rachel, the revelation of God in the Jewish and Christian 
Church,’ and the miracle of Eliseus wrought by causing the 
iron to swim, deliverance from the burden of sin by bap- 
tism,° etc., etc.), his Jewish adversary cannot help com- 
plaining that while God’s words are sacred, Justin’s exegesis 
of them is purely artificial.” Evidently, on these and other 
such occasions, the Christian apologist was carried too far, 
both by his desire to see references to Our Lord in the 
Scriptures of the old Covenant,’ and by his great admira- 
tion for Philo and his exegetical methods. It remains true, 
however, that his works display usually a wonderful insight 
into the deeper meaning of the Old Testament prophecies, 
and that from this point of view he shows himself a worthy 
disciple of the earliest preachers of Christianity. 

Happily for Christian apologetics and hermeneutics, 
principles of interpretation sounder than those of St. Justin, 
because less under the influence of Alexandrian allegorism, 

1 Dial. with Trypho, chap. cxxv. 
2 Tbid., chap. cxl. 
3 Tbid., chap. Ixxxvi. 


4 [bid., chap. Ixxix. 
5 Cfr. J. A. Man er, La Patrologie, vol. i, p. 241, sq. (French Transl.). 


439 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


were set forth by the. holy Bishop of Lyons, St. Irenzus. 
In his arguments against the Gnostics, who had developed 
allegorism on heretical lines, this champion of orthodoxy took 
a firm hold of the great Catholic rule, which had been formerly 
promulgated by St. Paul in his Second Epistle to the Thes- 
salonians,’ and which will ever remain the sure test and 
guide of Biblical Interpretation in the Church of God. Ac- 


99 2 


cording to him, the “ rwle of truth,”* or doctrinal tradition 
handed down in the churches founded by the Apostles, and 
more particularly “the tradition of the greatest and most 
ancient Church, known to all, founded and established by 
two most glorious Apostles, Peter.and Paul, at Rome... 

with which Church, on account of its pre-eminence, it is nec- 


essary that every church should agree,” * 


is the great prin- 
ciple of Christian interpretation. 

There is, assuredly, a wide difference between realizing 
clearly and stating forcibly a rule, and applying it constantly ; 
so that we are not surprised to find that, though he had so 
perfectly understood and promulgated /e great law of Bibli- 
cal Interpretation, St. Irenzeus deviated from it at times in 
practice. He has apparently recourse to a//egorism when he 
argues that there can be only four Gospels because there 
are only four quarters of the world, four winds, and four 
cherubic forms.* ‘He blames the Gnostics for drawing 
arguments from numbers, letters, and syllables; yet even in 
a matter so important as an explanation of the name, Jesus, 
he adopts the Rabbinic method of /Votarikon. He says that, 
in Hebrew, the word consists of two and a half letters and 
implies that Jesus is the Lord of heaven and earth.” *® 

There is no doubt, then, that St. Irenzus, like the author 
of the Clementine Recognétions, belongs to the class of /Yzs/o- 


1 TJ] Thessal. ii, 14. 2 St. IREN#&us, Against Heres., Book i, chap. i. 
8 St. IRENZus, ibid., Book iii, chaps. iii,iv. * St. IRENaus, ibid., Book iii, chap. xi, § 8. 
5 FARRAR, loc. cit., p. 176. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 431 


rico theological expounders, who follow sound and correct prin- 
ciples of hermeneutics. But the case stands differently with 
two other apologetical writers of the second century, St. 
Athenagoras, and St. Theophilus of Antioch, who freely in- 
dulged in allegorical and fanciful explanations of Holy 
Writ. 


3. The School of Alexandria. It was in the great 
catechetical school of Alexandria that, during the second 
part of the second century, there sprang up one of the most 
important schools of exegesis. The object and method of 
this exegetical school were naturally none other than those 
which Philo had formerly pursued with such success in that 
same city of Alexandria. The object was to unite philosophy 
with revelation; the method consisted in the allegorical 
system of interpretation. 

_As far as can be ascertained, the founder of the Christian 
exegetical school of Alexandria was St. Pantanus, a con- 
verted Stoic, who explained orally the Sacred Scriptures, 
and of whose writings only a few fragments remain. As 
we learn from Clement, the most illustrious of his disciples, 
Pantznus was an eloquent and skilful master, who knew 
better than all other teachers how to impart to his pupils 
his knowledge of the prophetic and Apostolic writings. 
About 190 a.D. he was succeeded as the head of the 
Alexandrian school by the same Clement, whose deep 
philosophical knowledge and close acquaintance with Greek 
literature were so highly esteemed by the heathen themselves, 
that they flocked in large numbers to his lectures. Accord- 
ing to this new teacher, the sacred writings of both Testa- 
ments have a parabolic or allegorical sense, designed ‘“ for 
those who are chosen from among men and fitted by faith 
for the Christian ydors.” He admits, indeed, the ex- 
istence of the literal, historical sense, but this lower sense 


432 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


which is obvious to all men produces only elementary faith, 
whereas the higher, the allegorical meaning, leads to the true 
yy@ots,—the sublime wisdom. Finally, he distinctly pro- 
claims, as we have seen St. Irenzeus do, the necessity of 
ecclesiastical tradition as the principle by which the true 
meaning of Scripture must be determined.’ But however 
sound, or least inoffensive, may appear the theoretical views 
of Clement of Alexandria, it cannot be denied that, in prac- 
tice, his unbounded admiration for Philo betrays him, prob- 
ably more than Pantzenus, into fanciful allegorical interpre- 
tations. Thus, for example, he expounds the Decalogue in 
the following manner: “ The writing of God and His for- 
mation of figures on the tablet is the creation of the world. 
The Decalogue, by a heavenly image, contains the sun, 
moon, stars, clouds, lights, wind, water, air, darkness, fire. 
This is the natural or physical decalogue of heaven. The 
image of the earth contains men, cattle, reptiles, beasts, and 
of aquatic tribes, fishes and whales; and again of birds, 
such as are carnivorous, and such as feed on the fruits of 
the earth; and of plants, in lke manner, both those that 
bear fruit, and those which are barren. This is the natural 
decalogue of the earth.” * Again, explaining the account of 
the erection of the tabernacle, and of the making of its 
furniture (Exod. chaps. xxv, xxvi), he says: “The candle- 
stick situated south of the altar of incense signified the move- 
ments of the seven stars making circuits southward. From 
each side of the candlestick projected three branches with 
lights in them, because the sun placed in the midst of the 
other planets gives light’ both to those above and under him 
by a kind of divine music.” 3 In the same allegorical strain, 


1For quotations from Clement’s writings regarding tradition, cfr. ScHANz, A 
Christian Apology, vol. iii. p. 373. See, also, Davrpson, On Sacred Hermeneu- 
tics, pp. 81-88. 

2 Miscellanies, Book vi., chap. xvi. 

®Miscellanies, Book v., chap. vi. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 433 


he tells us that the 366 bells hanging from the high priest’s 
robe are “the period of a year, the acceptable year of the 
Lord, proclaiming and echoing the great advent of the 
Saviour.” * 

Clement was succeeded and surpassed by his disciple, 
Origen, the greatest master by far of the Alexandrian school. 
“ By his Zetrapla and Hexapla Origen became the founder 
of all Textual Criticism ; by his Homilies he fixed the type of 
a popular exposition ; his Scho/za were the earliest specimens 
of marginal explanations; his Commentaries furnished the 
Church with her first continuous exegesis, his bock on 
First Principles was the earliest attempt at a systematic 
view of the Christian faith ; his knowledge of the Bible, and 
his contributions to its interpretation were absolutely un- 
rivalled.”? Like Irenzeus and Clement, this great scholar 
proclaims with no uncertain voice the great principle of an 
ecclesiastical tradition or Canon as the supreme test of exe- 
gesis. This exegetical tradition was handed down from the 
Apostles of the Lord, through the bishops of the Church; 
and nothing can be Christian truth which is not in accord- 
ance therewith.3 Like his predecessors, too, he distinguishes 
several senses of Holy Writ, among which he recognizes the 
literal, grammatical or historical. But like Barnabas, Justin, 
and Clement of Alexandria, he is too ready to set forth alle- 
gorical explanations, which remind us of Philo and his Hel- 
lenistic school. Nay, more, he endeavors to justify his 
extreme allegorism by showing the utter impossibility for 
the biblical interpreter to take in their literal sense, passages 
which, if understood in this manner, would ascribe to 
God mere human form and feelings, or contain something 
inherently absurd (such as the prohibition to eat vultures), 


1 Miscellanies, Book v, chap. vi. 
2 FARRAR, History of Interpretation, p. 188. 
3 Cfr. for instance Origen’s words in his Preface to the wept apxov. 


2 


434 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


or convey unworthy or unjust precepts (as, for instance, the 
threat that the uncircumcised man-child should be destroyed 
out of his people), or imply historical contradictions, etc. 
As further proofs of his position, he appeals to St. Paul’s 
statement that “the letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth,” ’ 
and to the incidental use by the same Apostle, of the pas- 
sage of the Red Sea by the Israelites as an analogy of 
Christian baptism,’ and of the story of Agar and Sara as 
signifying “‘ by an allegory” the two Testaments.® It is not 
therefore surprising to find that having thus shown, to his 
own Satisfaction, the lawfulness, nay, even the necessity of an 
allegorical exposition, Origen should very often disregard in » 
practice the literal and the moral senses of Holy Writ, which 
he had recognized in theory. 

A few brief specimens of Origen’s extreme allegorism will 
suffice here. The fact that Rebecca came to draw water at 
the well and there met the servant of Abraham (Gen. xxiv, 
15, sq.), he takes to mean that we must “ daily come to the 
wells of Scripture ” in order to meet with Christ. In Gen. 
xvill, 2, the Septuagint says wrongly that the three men seen 
by Abraham stood adove him. Origen interprets this as mean- 
ing that Abraham submitted himself to the will of God. In 
connection with St. Matt. (xix, 3, sqq.), where there is ques- 
tion of divorce, the same scholar enters upon a long digres- 
sion about the marriage of the soul with its guardian angel. 
The words of Christ’s forerunner in St. Matt. (ili, 11) and 
St. John (i, 27), that he is not worthy “to bear” or “to 
loose” the shoes of the coming Messias, Origen refers to 
Our Lord’s incarnation and descent into Hades, etc., etc. 

Thus will it be seen that Origen, like the other Alexan- 
drines, proceeded in his interpretation upon the exaggera- 


1 TL 'Cor, 11156; 
2 TCor. x15) 8de 
3 Galat. iv, 21, sqq. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 435 


tion of a truth, particularly as regards the writings of the Old 
Testament. “If we think of that long Revelation, unfold- 
ing itself gradually through centuries, and growing ever 
fuller and clearer as it proceeds, we cannot deny that its 
earlier stages contained the germ of the later, that much was 
anticipatory and preparative, that God granted to chosen 
spirits a vision more or less distinct of the long-hoped-for 
consummation.’ The Priest, the King, the Prophet foreboded 
with increasing clearness the Lamb of God, the Son of David, 
the Man of Sorrows. There were shadows of good things 
to come; there were vaticinations; there were types. But 
it does not follow that all was type; it does not follow that 
the type is a perfect and elaborate figure of the antitype. 
The Alexandrines erred in both ways. They found symbols 
where there was no symbol ; they treated symbols not as in- 
dications, as harbingers, but as proofs.” ” 


§ 2. Biblical Interpretation from the Fourth to the Sixth 
Century. 


1. The Eastern Schools of Antioch, Edessa, 
and Czsarea. While the influence of Origen continued 
to be felt powerfully in the school of Alexandria, chiefly 
through the exegetical teaching of St. Denys of Alexandria, 
another Greek school of Biblical Interpretation was begin- 
ning to spring up in Antioch of Syria. The origin of this 
great school has been traced back to the catechetical school 
founded in the Syrian capital, by the “ presbyter Malchion,”’ 3 
and powerfully developed by two of his disciples, Dorothzus 
and Lucian. 

The exegetical method of the Antiochian school stood in 
great contrast with that pursued by the biblical scholars of 

DiCins eb. xi,.73- 


2 Charles Bicc, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, p. 148, sq. 
8 Cfr. Eusesius, Ecclesiastical History, Book vii, chap. xxix. 


436 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Alexandria. Looking upon the literal sense as the meaning 
directly and primarily intended by God, the school of Anti- 
och maintained that this sense was the one it imported most 
to determine, and that for obtaining it every available means, 
such as grammar, history, etc., should be used. It wisely re- 
jected every arbitrary construction of the sacred text, and 
all the allegorical explanations for which no sound basis 
could be pointed out." Whence it appears that the leading 
principles of this exegetical school were truly those of sober 
and sound hermeneutics, and this is why they are still 
adhered to by our contemporary exegetical writers. 

The chief representatives of the Antiochian school are: 
(1) Diodorus’ of Tarsus: (jf ab.‘ 390); (2) Theodore of 
Mopsuestia (ft 429) and St. John Chrysostom (f 407), the 
two great disciples of Diodorus; (3) Polychronius, Bishop 
of Apamza ({f 430); (4) St. Isidore of Pelusium (f ab. 
450), a disciple of St. Chrysostom; and finally (5) Theo- 
doret, Bishop of Cyrus (fab. 458). Prominent among these 
illustrious interpreters stands St. John Chrysostom, whose 
exegetical works on the New Testament have contributed 
so much—as may be ascertained by consulting the best 
lexicons and critical commentaries,—towards a right under- 
standing of the words and phrases of the original Greek. 
His homilies on the epistles of St. Paul are particularly ap- 
preciated ; but his other commentaries, homilies, or sermons 
on various parts of Scripture,” bespeak all a master in the 
art of discovering and setting forth the true sense of the 
sacred text. Much better than any other member of the 
Antiochian school, he knows how to elicit from a passage its 
genuine sense (whether it be the proper, metaphorical, or 
allegorical), and next how to set it forth with precision, ac- 


1 Cfr. ViGouroux, Manuel Biblique, vol. i, n. 206. 

2 Besides his Homilies on St. Paul, we have of him sixty-seven Homilies and nine Ser- 
mons on Genesis ; Expositions on Psalms iii-xii, xli-xlix and cviii-cl ; Commentaries 
on Isaias; and finally, ninety Homilies on St. Matthew. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 437 


curacy, clearness, and elegance. In fact, “as a bishop in- 
spired with genuine love for the souls of his flock; as a 
preacher of surpassing eloquence whose popular exposition 
is based on fine scholarship and controlled by masterly good 
sense; as one who had a thorough familiarity with the whole 
of Scripture, and who felt its warm, tingling human life 
throbbing in all his veins; as one who took the Bible as he 
found it, and used it in its literal sense as a guide of conduct 
rather than as an armory of controversial weapons or a 
field for metaphysical speculations— Chrysostom stands un- 
surpassed among the ancient exegetes.” ’ 

Side by side with the Greek-speaking section of the Syrian 
Church, whose great exegetical school was founded in Anti- 
och, there was the hardly less important Syriac-speaking 
section of the same Church, having Edessa for its great 
biblical centre, and Aphraates and St. Ephrem for its lead- 
ing interpreters. The hermeneutical principles of Aphraates 
are not so sound as those for which the Antiochian school is 
conspicuous in the early Christian Church. It is true that 
like the illustrious scholars of Antioch, he is chiefly con- 
cerned with the historical sense of Holy Writ, does not neg- 
lect its typical meaning, and recognizes openly ecclesiastical 
tradition as the supreme test of Catholic exegesis. But 
differently from them, he indulges freely in allegorical 
methods of interpretation, and follows too readily rabbinical 
traditions.” From this latter point of view, St. Ephrem is 
decidedly superior to Aphraates, for his extant works prove 
conclusively that he adopted fully the exegetical methods of 
the school of Antioch. His interpretation of Holy Writ is 
remarkable for its careful investigation of the literal sense, 

1 FarRAR, History of Interpretation, p. 220, sq. For the subsequent history of the 
school of Antioch, cfr. ViGouroux, Dictionnaire de la Bible, art. Antioche (Ecole 
Exégétique d’), col. 685. 


? For illustrations of these statements, see J. Parisot, art. Aphraate, in Vicouroux, 
Dict. de la Bible, col. 739, sq. 


438 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


and for the tone of piety which pervades the exposition of 
the moral and religious teachings of the Sacred Scriptures. 
It might have been supposed that so illustrious a master as 
the holy deacon of Edessa would leave after him pupils who 
would write valuable works ; in reality, the disciples of St. 
Ephrem proved very inferior scholars,’ and the school of . 
Edessa can hardly be said to have survived long the death 
of its greatest interpreter. 

“The great Cappadocian triumvirate,” * St. Basil the Great 
(tT 379), St. Gregory Nazianzen (f{ ab. 389), and St. Gregory 
of Nyssa (f+ 396), is usually designated under the name of 
the school of Caesarea in Cappadocia, although these Greek 
Fathers did not gather around them disciples eager to study 
under them. ‘They were simply three illustrious scholars, 
who, in their explanation of Holy Writ, followed a kind of 
via media between the schools of Alexandria and Antioch, 
endeavoring to avoid equally the extreme allegorism of the 
former and the strict literalism of many members of the 
latter. The best-known work of the school of Caesarea is 
the Hexemerox of St. Basil, in which the holy Doctor pro- 
pounds so forcibly the literal sense of the narrative of 
creation.* 


2. The Latin Fathers. To whatever causes may be 
referred the lateness of large exegetical works among the 
Latins,’ it must be granted that before the fourth century 
hardly any such Latin writing appeared in the Western 
churches. Thus Tertullian (f about 220), and St. Cyprian 
(t 258), though they be prolific writers, are satisfied with 
quoting Holy Writ usually in its literal sense, and with main- 

1 His best-known pupils were Cyrillonas (+ ab. 396), Baleas (+ ab. 425), Isaac of Anti- 
och (+ 460), ete. Cfr. R. Duvat, La Litérature Syriaque, p. 337, sqq. 

2 FarRAR, loc. cit., p. 210. 

8 Cfr. Al. Morats, L’Origine du Monde d’apr?s la Tradition, p. 133, sqq. 


4The principal reasons of this unquestionable fact are well exposed in CHAuvin, 
Lecons d'Introduction, p. 578, sqq. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE 'CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 439 


taining stoutly against the heretics of their time, that ecclesi- 
astical tradition is the supreme test of sound interpretation, 
and it is only with St. Victorinus (f 303) Bishop of Pettau 
in Styria, that regular Latin commentaries on the Sacred 
Scriptures make their appearance. Even in the earlier part 
of the fourth century, St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Ambrose 
are the only two commentators whose exegetical works are 
considerable, and who give us an idea of the method of in- 
terpretation prevalent in their time. They both have under- 
gone the influence of Origen, and indulge too freely in 
allegorical and mystical explanations. 

A much brighter era in the history of Biblical Interpre- 
tation among the Latins opens with the latter part of the 
fourth and the beginning of the fifth century, when such 
Doctors as St. Jerome (331-420), St. Augustine (354-430), 
St. Peter Chrysologus (f 450), Pope St. Leo the Great 
(ft 461), and St. Prosper of Aquitaine ({ 465), illustrate 
the Western Church by their numerous and_ brilliant 
writings. The most sober of them all, as he is also the 
best informed, is unquestionably St. Jerome, whose life 
and principal writings have been briefly given in chapter 
xiv. He is familiar with the writings of Origen, several of 
which he has rendered himself into Latin, and he professes 
a genuine admiration for the great Alexandrine Doctor. 
Nevertheless, his own exegesis, as indeed his own views 
about the Canon, is modelled not after Origen, but after the 
great Fathers of Antioch and Cesarea. Without altogether 
rejecting allegorical and moral explanations of the sacred 
writings, St. Jerome is chiefly anxious to determine their 
exact literal sense in the light, of philology, tradition, and 
history, and it must be said that his commentaries, especially 
those which he wrote on the Old Testament, are excellent 
works, equally remarkable for their scientific accuracy and 
their clearness of expression. 


440 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Next to St. Jerome comes the illustrious Bishop of Hippo, 
St. Augustine, who, in his work Ox Christian Doctrine, 
lays down the wisest rules to be followed for a sound inter- 
pretation of Holy Writ, and who throughout most of his 
writings, scatters judicious remarks having a direct bearing 
upon exegesis. According to him, the object of all interpre- 
tation is to express as accurately as possible the thoughts 
and meaning of an author, and in the case of the Holy 
Scriptures this is not attained by strictly insisting on each 
single expression by itself, but by close attention to the con- 
text, by comparison with kindred places where the sense is 
more clearly and definitely given, and finally by a reference 
to the essentials of Christian doctrine. His brief description 
of the accomplished interpreter is well worth quoting, be- 
cause it conveys in a concrete manner some of his exegetical 
views. ‘ The interpreter,” says he, “ should not be a lover 
of contention, but possess meekness in his piety. He should 
be furnished beforehand with a knowledge of the original 
languages, lest he be at a loss in unknown words and ex- 
pressions. He should possess a knowledge of certain neces- 
sary things (biblical archzology), lest he be ignorant: of the 
efficacy and nature of objects used in the way of similitude. 
He should likewise be aided by the truth of manuscripts 
which a skilful and diligent emendation has effected. Thus 
equipped, let. him come to discuss and solve the difficult 
passages of the Scriptures. 

It cannot be denied that, judged by this very portraiture 
of the interpreter of holy writ, St. Augustine can hardly 
be spoken of as a scholar fully equipped for the work of 
explaining the sacred text. He knew no Hebrew, and had 
but a meagre knowledge of Greek. His acquaintance with 
biblical archeology was of necessity very limited, and the 


? 


291 


1 On Christian Doctrine, Book iii, chap. i. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN ‘CHURCH. 441 


MSS. at his disposal but few. ‘Time and -again his render- 
ings could not help being defective, because based on the 
old Latin versions, i.e.,0n mere transcripts of the Septua- 
gint which he wrongly considered as inspired; and further 
he thought that “all” or “almost all” the truth of the 
Gospel could be found in the Old Testament, an erroneous 
frame of mind bound to betray his subtle genius into count- 
less errors of interpretation. In point of fact, while his 
commentaries abound “in constant flashes of genius, and 
contain the rich results of msight and experience,” ' they 
also bear to a very large extent the impress of his native 
subtlety and of his great fondness for allegorical explanations. 

After St. Augustine, original interpreters of Holy Writ 
become very scarce in the Latin Church, and only Junilius 
Africanus, Cassiodorus, St. Gregory the Great, and St. Isi- 
dore of Seville, can be mentioned in the course of the sixth 
and seventh centuries. 


§ 3. Biblical Interpretation during the Middle Ages. 


I. Before the Scholastic Period. It would be a 
waste of time to insist at any length on the exegetical pro- 
ductions of the period which intervenes between the age of 
the Fathers of the Church and that of the scholastic theolo- 
gians. Almost all the works of the time (eighth to eleventh 
centuries) are not original commentaries on the sacred books, 
but simply compilations made up of excerpts from earlier in- 
terpreters. ‘The number and choice of these earlier interpret- 
ers vary considerably with the compiler, but his work bears the 
uniform stamp of the fashion of the time: it is a collection 
of extracts which he strings up (hence the name of cafene, 
chains, given to such works) after an order of his own, and 
into which he introduces no change, except when he feels 


1 FarRAR, loc. cit., p. 237. 


442 GENERAL, INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, 


compelled to abbreviate or condense. The name of each 
Father or ecclesiastical writer whose works have been utilized, 
is given at the end of each eXcerpt, and it is but seldom that 
the compiler offers an opinion of his own.’ 

As during the period at which we have arrived in the his- 
tory of Biblical Interpretation, exegetical skill and methods 
were at a low ebb both in the East and in the West, it is not 
surprising to find that this compilation process was carried 
on both by Greek and Latin interpreters. In fact, the only 
practical difference between the two sets of Catene which 
have come down to us, is that the Greek one has a better 
chance to supply us with quotations from writings which are 
no longer extant. The principal authors of Ca/ene among 
the Greeks are: St. John Damascene (f ab. 750), G&cume- 
nius; Arethas; Euthymius Zigabenus; and Theophylact, 
all of the tenth century. Among the Latins, we may men- 
tion more particularly Ven. Bede (f 735); Alcuin (fF 804); 
Rabanus Maurus (f 856); Walafrid Strabo (f 849), the 
celebrated author of the Glossa Ordinaria, a Catena 
which remained the ordinary exegetical hand-book for 
several centuries; and finally, Lanfranc (ft 1089). Beside 
these authors of Catenz, we must not omit the names of 
more independent scholars, such as the Benedictine, Christian 
Druthmar (f 850) among the Latins, and the Patriarch 
Photius (f 891) among the Greeks.’ 


2. Scholastic Exegesis. The lack of originality 
which we haye noticed in the predecessors of the scholastic 
theologians, continues to be one of the leading features of 


1 The Glosse of this same period differ from the Catena, only in so far that the explana- 
tions borrowed from the Fathers chiefly of the first four centuries, are shorter than in the 
Catenz, and are written either in the margin or between the lines of a copy of the Latin 
Vulgate. 

2 For further information, see art. Chaines Bibliques, in ViGouroux, Dict. de la Bible 
col. 482, sqq.; art. Catena, in ScHAFF-HERzoG, Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge; 
Samuel Davipson, Sacred Hermeneutics, pp. 163~171. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 443 


the interpreters of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Like 
their exegetical predecessors also, the schoolmen admit the 
existence of several senses in Holy Writ, and recognize tra- 
dition as the supreme rule of Biblical Interpretation. It can- 
not be denied, however, that several among them exhibit 
considerable originality of thought, although it is to be regret- 
ted that while they all proclaim that the literal sense. alone 
ean supply solid doctrinal proofs, their originality shows 
itself chiefly in the line of allegorical interpretation. It is 
also to be regretted that those who wrote regular commen- 
taries on parts of Holy Writ, should have introduced into 
their treatises that dry and @ frzord method with which they 
were wont to handle questions of philosophy and theology. 
Yet, in one respect at least, their method was better than 
that of their predecessors ; they busied themselves with each 
book as a whole, and sought to determine accurately the 
general purpose of its author. Finally, many of the defects 
noticeable in scholastic exegesis would have no doubt been 
avoided, had the interpreters of that period been conversant 
with the original languages, and with the archeology, geog- 
raphy and history of the Bible: they had certainly the 
power of mind sufficient to do excellent work in Biblical In- 
terpretation ; they lacked the technical knowledge which 
was gradually attained only Icng after their time.’ 

The best-known interpreters among the schoolmen are: 
Hugo of St. Victor (f 1141); Abailard (f 1142); St. Bernard 
(fT iirrsS)-e beter Lombardy (ieiro4): Hugo of St. Cher 
(f 1260); Albertus Magnus (f 1280); St. Thomas Aquinas 
(| 1274); St. Bonaventura ({ 1274); and Roger Bacon 
(ft 1248). 


3. The Renaissance and Its Biblical Scholars. 
With the fourteenth century opened a period of transition 


1 TrocnHon, Introduction 4 l’Etude de |’ Ecriture Sainte, vol, i, p. 204 (Paris, 1889). 


444 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


between the purely traditional exegesis of the preceding 
centuries and the more scientific method of subsequent ages. 
As early as 1311, Clement V and the Council of Vienne 
pointed out authoritatively the direction which Christian 
interpretation should take up and follow to resume gradually 
the scientific character, which it had possessed in the East 
and in the West, during the fourth and fifth centuries of our 
era. By their decree that Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and 
Chaldaic professorships should be established in the great 
universities of Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca, they 
initiated a movement which must needs promote a compar- 
ison between the originals and the Latin versions, and entail 
as a necessary consequence the rejection of many received 
explanations which had no real basis on the letter of Holy 
Writ. The movement thus inaugurated was kept up and 
quickened by the influence of Nicholas de Lyra, O.S.F., 
(| 1341) the one great commentator of the fourteenth cen- 
tury. This scholar was well acquainted with Hebrew and 
Rabbinic traditions ; he admitted the fourfold sense of Holy 
Scripture, viz.: the “feral or historical, the mystical or spir- 
itual, the allegorical, and the mora/ or tropological, but clearly 
gave the preference to the literal sense. Here are his forci- 
ble words against the allegorism of those who had gone be- 
fore him: “ All of them (i. e., scriptural senses) presuppose 
the literal sense as the foundation. As a building declining 
from the foundation is likely to fall, so the mystic interprc - 
ation, which deviates from the literal sense, must be reckoned 
as unbecoming and unsuitable. Those, therefore, who wish 
to make proficiency in the study of the Sacred Scriptures, 
must begin with the literal sense ; especially because from it 
alone any argument can be brought to prove or declare what 
is doubtful. .. . It must: be observed, likewise, that .the 
literal sense has been much obscured by the method of ex- 
position recommended and _ practised by others who, though 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 445 


they may have said many things well, have yet touched on 
the literal but sparingly, and have so multiplied the mystical 
senses as nearly to intercept and choke it. Proposing, there- 
fore, to avoid these and similar practices, I intend, with 
God’s assistance, to insist upon the literal sense, and to insert 
occasionally a very few brief mystical expositions.””’ In his 
great exegetical work, entitled, “ Postille perpetua, seu brevia 
commentaria in universa Biblia,’ Nicholas de Lyra followed 
with real success the method he had thus sketched for him- 
self. Unfortunately, as he did not know Greek, he could not 
take the original text as the basis of his commentary on 
the New Testament: in fact, he was satisfied to interpret 
the Latin Vulgate, chiefly with the help of St. Augustine 
and of St. Thomas. . 

The lack of acquaintance with the Greek language, which, 
as we have just remarked, made the work of Lyranus on 
the New Testament so inferior to his Commentary on the 
Hebrew Text, began somewhat to disappear in Italy in the 
fourteenth century, and also, through Italian influence, in 
some other countries. It was only, however, after the fall of 
Constantinople under the Turkish yoke (in 1453) had caused 
Greek grammarians and scholars to take refuge in West- 
ern Europe, that Greek language and literature were exten- 
sively studied. Other causes, foremost among which must 
be reckoned the invention of the art of printing, contributed 
likewise powerfully to make of the fifteenth century the 
period of a great movement of revival in Greek learning and 
art, which has been called the Renazssance and in which 
several Popes, notably Nicholas V and Leo X, took a 
prominent part. 

The principal commentators of this period of transition 
were Gerson (f 1429), whose hermeneutical principles were 


1 The words of Lyranus are quoted in Davipson, Sacred Hermeneutics, p. 176, 
footn. 1. 


446 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


far superior to the application he made of them; Alphonsus 
Tostat (7 1455), more diffuse than scientific as an interpre- 
ter; J. Reuchlin (7 1522), the first Christian who composed 
a grammar and a lexicon of the Hebrew language ; Erasmus 
(t 1536), the most celebrated Greek scholar of the time; 
Card. Cajetan (+1534), who has left valuable commentaries 
on St. Paul, the Gospels and the Psalms; finally, Santes 
Pagnini (f¢ 1541), celebrated for his Hebrew and Rabbinic 
attainments. 


SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER XIX. 


History oF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN 


CHURCH. 


Section If. Since the Protestant Reformation. 


I. 


FIRST PERIOD: 


BEFORE THE 


RISE OF 


RATIONALISM : 


II. 
SECOND 
PERIOD: 

SINCE THE 


RISE OF 


RATIONALISM : 


Se ay — 
— 


. Biblical Interpreta- 


. Origin and Principal 


( Exegetical Principles of 


. Exegesis of the Early | Luther. 


Reformers. views adopted by the 


How far were Luther’s 

other Reformers ? 

Happy Combination of 
Tradition and Scientific 
Method. 

Leading Interpreters. 


tion among Catho- 
lics : 


Schools of Inter- 
pretation : 


Peculiar Features. 
Leading Scholars, 


. Principal Protestant Pecan Tenets. 


pUncertying Principles of 
Phases of Banone Rationalistic Exegesis. 
alistic Interpreta- } Principal Schools and 
tion : {| Scholars. 


. Protestant Exegesis in Germany, England, and 


America. 


3. Interpretation among Principal Features, 


Catholics : Leading Interpreters 


447 


CHAP TE Re crx? 


HISTORY OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN 
CHURCH. 


Section II. SINCE THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION. 


§ 1. first Period: Before the Rise of Rationalism. 


1. Exegesis of the Early Reformers. It would be 
a long and tedious task to relate in detail the individual exe- 
getical views of the early Protestant reformers, and their 
vain efforts to build up a system of Biblical Interpretation 
altogether independent of the traditions of past ages. We 
shall, therefore, confine ourselves to a brief exposition of the 
exegetical methods of their great “ prophet” ’ Luther, and 
to a distinct mention of the general principles which his 
companions and helpers held in common with him. 

As early as 1520 Luther proclaimed openly that he would 
not submit to authority in exegesis, ‘“ Leges interpretandi 


verbum Det non patior.” * 


He recognized, indeed, the use- 
fulness of patristic writings, when they are read with discre- 
tion, yet contended that it is by comparing Scripture with 
clearer Scripture, that we must arrive at the truth.* We 
must not twist Holy Writ, but understand it in “its literal 
sense alone, which is the whole essence of faith and of 


Christian theology.” ‘In the schools of theologians it is a 


1 Luther is called thus by FARRAR, History of Interpretation, p. 341. 
2 Letter toePbope: een kame 
8 Cfr. LUTHER, Comm, in Gen., cap. iil, p. 43a. 


448 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 449 


well-known rule that Scripture is to be understood in four 
ways, literal, allegoric, moral, anagogic. But if we wish 
to handle Scripture aright, our one effort will be to cbtain 
unum, simplicem, germanum et certum sensum Uliteralem.” 
‘‘ Hach passage has one clear, definite, and true sense of its 
own. All others are but doubtful and uncertain opinions.” ! 
Elsewhere Luther speaks of allegories as the ‘awkward, 
unclean, earthly, sluttish rags and shags of interpretation.” ? 
Strict self-consistency, however, does not seem to have been 
a special canon of his method of exegesis, for he reverses at 
times his verdict against allegorical interpretation, as, for 
instance, when he declares that: “ Grammatica quidem 
WECESSATIC CStmeL ee CTae sca. Caerloi acbel revere res; sed 
SEVUIE TOUTE ee ey POInt Ol. fact," when he” reads the 
doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, and Justifica- 
tion by Faith, and Reformation dogmatics and polemics, into 
passages written more than a thousand years before the 
Christian era—when, ina spirit worthy of Rabbi Aqiba him- 
self, he infers the divinity of the Messias and the ‘Com- 
munication of Idioms’ from the particle myx in Gen. v, 22, 
he is adopting an unreal method, which had been rejected a 
millennium earlier by the clearer insight and more unbiased 
wisdom of the school of Antioch. As a consequence of this 
method, in his commentary on Genesis, he adds nothing to 
Lyranus, except a misplaced dogmatic treatment of patriarchal 
history.” * 

Two other exegetical principles which were most valuable 
in the eyes of Luther, remain to be mentioned. The first 


1 These quotations are taken from FARRAR, loc. cit., p. 327. 

2 See G. T. Lapp, The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. ii, p. 169. Cfr. LUTHER, 
Comm. in Gen., cap. lil, p. 42@ 5 cap. xv, p. 179@3 Cap. XXX, P. 417. 

3 Comm. in Gen., cap. xvi, p. 1894. Luther is also quoted as having said: ‘‘ Gram- 
maticam decet Theologiae cedere.”’ 

4 Farrar, History of Interpretation, p. 334. Nicholas Lyranus and Rashi are trace- 
able throughout Luther’s Commentary on Genesis, and Richard Simon says rightly that, 
“he usually added nothing to them, except his own prejudices.” 


29 


45° GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


regards the ferspicuzty of Scripture, which he proclaimed as 
follows: “ The Holy Ghost is the plainest writer and speaker 
that is in heaven or on earth: therefore, His words can have 
no more than the one simple meaning, which we call the 


1 The second is the absolute 


scriptural or literal sense. 
right of private judgment, in virtue of which every Christian 
may, and, indeed, must, test his faith by Scripture. Of 
course such principles could be far more easily formulated 
than applied, so that it is not surprising to find that Luther 
himself was not a little puzzled when he was confronted 
with the fact that despite the so-called perspicuity of Scrip- 
ture there is scarcely a verse in Holy Writ which has not 
been interpreted in different ways, and when Zwingli, the 
Anabaptists, Carlstadt, etc., all appealed to the right of 
private judgment to interpret Scripture in a sense opposed 
to his own. Nor is it very surprising to find that, despairing 
to settle exegetical difficulties by simple appeals to the Bible, 
Melanchthon and Calvin should have advocated recourse to 
an authority distinct from the Holy Scriptures. The former 
proposed that all should abide by “a consensus of pious 
” the latter wished that a “synod of true bishops ” 
should be obeyed. Such views were rejected by Luther, 
who, together with Zwingli, maintained that, in difficult 
passages, Holy Writ should be interpreted according to “the 
analogy of faith,” i.e., according to the whole tenor of 
Scripture teaching. But as by the analogy of faith, the 
early reformers soon understood harmony with received 
doctrines, the Lutheran rule of interpreting the Bible according 
to the ‘“‘ analogy of faith” was “soon made to mean the same 
as the old Romish rule that no explanation is to be admitted 
which runs counter to the current ecclesiastical dogmas.” ? 


men ; 


1 Answer to Emser, quoted by LApp, The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. ii, p. 
169. 
7 FarRAR, loc. cit., p. 333. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 451 


But however great may have been the doctrinal and exe- 
getical differences between the early reformers and Luther, 
it is beyond doubt that they were at one with him as regards 
the following points: (1) the rejection of scholastic methods 
and of a fourfold scriptural sense; (2) an instinctive dis- 
trust and relative giving up of allegorical interpretation ; (3) 
the repudiation of ecclesiastical tradition as an authority in 
the interpretation of Holy Writ; (4) the importance of the 
original languages to get at the exact meaning of the sacred 
writers ; (5) confidence in the possibility of clearing up dif- 
ficulties—at least as far.as essential truths are concerned— 
by a comparative study of biblical passages; (6) the tend- 


) 


ency to consider, “the analogy of faith” as an indispens- 
able rule of Hermeneutics.’ 

Such are the leading principles which were propounded 
by the early reformers in common with Luther, but to which, 
like their great leader, they were often unfaithful in their 


exegetical works.’ 


2. Biblical Interpretation among Catholics. 
While Protestant interpreters thus endeavored to frame and 
apply exegetical rules independently of the traditions of past 
ages, Catholic commentators showed themselves faithful to 
the spirit which had ever animated the leading interpreters 
of the Christian Church. Far from looking upon the Holy 
Scriptures as the sole and sufficient source of divine Revela- 
tion, they held that living Catholic tradition contains the un- 
written Word of God and is the authorized interpreter of the 
sacred writings. Far from relying entirely on their own 
ability and despising as worthless the labors of the great 
interpreters of past centuries, they not only admired the 


1 Cfr. Lapp, loc, cit., p. 171; FARRAR, loc. cit., p. 342. 

* The principal commentaries of the early reformers are sufficiently indicated in 
Vicouroux, Manuel Biblique, vol. i, n. 217; and CuHavuvin, Lecons d’Introduction Gé- 
nérale, p. 600, sq. ? : 


452 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


works of their predecessors, but also availed themselves of 
their valuable doctrinal and exegetical contents. Thus did 
faithfulness to ecclesiastical tradition prove to Catholic in- 
terpreters a safeguard against the many vagaries noticeable 
in the exegetical works of most of the early reformers, and 
secure to them a considerable amount of positive informa- 
tion. 

To this first praiseworthy feature of Catholic exegesis, was 
added another hardly less commendable. Annoyed by the 
boasts of truly scientific interpretation emanating from Prot- 
estant sources, orthodox scholars endeavored to be more 
strict in their exposition of Holy Writ, and further, as they 
were conscious of possessing the truth, they did not hesitate 
to follow their adversaries on their supposed vantage-ground : 
like the Protestants of the time, they appealed to grammar, 
history and criticism, and by a careful study of the sacred 
text, showed how, from a purely scientific standpoint, the 
difficulties against Catholic positions were really groundless. 
For this purpose, orthodox scholars paid close attention to 
the literal meaning of the words, examined the context care- 
fully, treated with moderation and real insight questions of 
Biblical Criticism, discussed with great skill the explanations 
offered by ancient interpreters, took up and dealt with the 
difficulties raised by their opponents, in a straightforward 
and thorough manner. Ina word, they so happily combined 
the practice of a truly scientific method with genuine res- 
pect for tradition, that the period which elapsed between the 
rise of Protestantism and that of Rationalism, and was so 
fertile in biblical interpreters, has justly been called the 
“ golden age” of Catholic exegesis. 

Prominent in this galaxy of able scholars, were (1) An- 
drew Masius (f 1573), one of the editors of the Antwerp 
Polyglot ; (2) Cornelius Jansenius (f 1576), Bishop of Gand,' 


1 Not to be taken for his nephew, the celebrated heretic of the same name. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 453 


and author of an excellent commentary on the Gospels; (3) 
John Maldonatus, (S. J.) (f 1583), perhaps still our best 
commentator of the four Gospels; (4) Francis Foreiro 
(O. P.) (fF 1587), the author of a remarkable commentary on 
Isaias; (5) William Estius (f 1613), whose excellent work 
on the epistles of St. Paul cannot be too much recommended 
to the student; (6) Benedict Justiniani (S. J.) ({ 1622), an- 
other remarkable commentator of St. Paul; (7) James Bon- 
frere (S. J.) (fF 1642), known chiefly for his /reloguia in 
totam Scripturam,; (8) John Morin (f 1659), whose critical 
works and ability are worthy of all praise ; (g) lastly, Augus- 
tin Calmet (O. 5S. B.) (1672-1757), who in his learned 
commentary on the whole Bible gives chiefly the literal sense 
of the sacred writings.’ 


3. Principal Protestant Schools of Interpreta- 
tion. In strange contrast with the harmony which charac- 
terizes Catholic exegesis at this epoch, stands the confu- 
sion into which Protestant interpretation soon fell after the 
death of the great reformers. In fact, it is no easy task in 
the midst of the various ‘ Confessional Schools,” which 
arose at the time, to recognize and point out even the lead- 
ing features which characterized them all; we shall, however, 
endeavor to do so, without entering into a detailed examina- 
tion of them. 

As might naturally be expected, they were all animated 
by a strong spirit of opposition to Rome, and in consequence, 
none of them lost sight of the essentially Protestant principle 
which placed the authority of Scripture far above that of 
tradition. Everywhere in the ponderous “scholastic ” trea- 
tises of their leading divines,’ we meet with such theses as : 


1 For further information, cfr. DanKo, De Sacra Scriptura Commentarius, pars tertia, 
P. 334, sqq.; CorNELy, Introductio Generalis, p. 672, sqq. 

2 The lengthy and heavy character of these treatises is well described by Farrar, 
History of Interpretation, p. 361, sqq. 


454 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


‘Scripture holds its authority from itself, i. e., from God who 
inspired it; Scripture is the supreme judge in matters of 
faith and for everything relating to salvation ; Scripture is 
the source of all authority in the Church, and the latter can 
as little pretend to exercise any patronage over Scripture as 
it can pretend to have inspired it.” * 

A second assumption no less dear to the Protestant schools 
of this period, is that the Bible contains a consistent and 
symmetrical system of doctrine, which can be extracted from 
it by means of grammar and logic, and must be considered 
as the Regula fide’, as a standard of doctrine against which 
no interpretation of the Bible should prevail. Hence “the 
learning of the time was much displayed in pedantic efforts 
to discover proof-texts not already pre-empted, or in discuss- 
ing such passages as seemed to refute the prevailing dog- 
matism; only with a view, however, to twist them so as to 
render them tributary to the same dogmatism (1. e., to the dog- 
matic bias of a different school).” A large portion of the Bible 
thus became wsed up as proof-texts for the current systema- 
tic statements of faith, and all passages of Scripture were 
expected to be understood by all the orthodox as in accord- 
ance with these statements. The number of passages, the 
interpretation of which was thus fixed by dogmatic 
considerations, was constantly being enlarged. ‘“ That an 
appeal was made in such cases to an inner witness of the 
Holy Spirit as a pledge for their truth, sounds,” says Reuss, 
“like grim irony.” ° 

A third exegetical view, and the last to be mentioned here 
as widely prevalent in the Protestant schools of interpreta- 
tion, maintained that the original text of the Bible had 
been transmitted in its absolute primitive purity, so that 


1 Reuss, History of the Canon of the Holy Scriptures in the Christian Church, p. 


343, Sq. 
2 Lapp, The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, p. 181, sq. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 455 


the smallest vowel-sign or accent of the Hebrew Scriptures, 
the most irregular forms found in the Greek New Testa- 
ment, were to be held as having emanated directly from the 
divine influence of the Holy Spirit. 

It will be noticed that the tenets held in common by 
the leading Protestant schools down to the rise of Rational- 
ism were the outcome of an “irresistible demand for sta- 
bility,” ‘ for it was naturally felt that a supreme and final 
authority was a practical necessity to counterbalance the 
decisive influence of the right of private judgment upcn 
biblical exegesis.” Now this supreme and final authority 
could not be, for any Protestant sect, distinct from the Bible, 
the text of which should be beyond every suspicion of cor- 
ruption, and the meaning of which should be determined in 
difficult passages by no other means than its own teaching 
contained in clearer passages, and already embodied—as was 
claimed by each school—in a binding “ Symbol,” “ Formula,” 
or “ Confession of Faith.” 

Thus, then, a certain kind of unity and stability of inter- 
pretation was secured within each Protestant school, but it 
was Clearly to the detriment not only of freedom, but also of 
vitality. ‘The followers of the reformers thought they 
could confine and control by formulas and official seals a 
revolution in the realm of mind whose original force none 
measured, whose final goal none perceived. In the Lutheran 
Church, the stagnation came in, and victoriously, with the 
Formula of Concord (in 1580); in the Reformed, somewhat 
later, with the decrees of Dort (in 1619), but as the decision 
of a controversy between freedom and slavery in the realm 


of Scripture Interpretation.” * The only theological works, 


1 Reuss, History of the Sacred Scriptures of the New Testament, vol. ii, p. 572 
(Engl. Transl.). 

2 Cfr. FARRAR, History of Interpretation, p. 370. sq. 

8’ Reuss, History of the Sacred Scriptures of the New Testament, vol. ii, p. 572 
(Engl. Transl.). See also, FARRAR, loc. cit., p. 374. 


456 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


and the only commentaries of this period which still retained 
any vitality, were those of smaller schools, which, while rec- 
ognizing tacitly the faith of their respective churches as a 
guide in their exposition of the Holy Scriptures, yet claimed 
and exercised a certain amount of independence. As schools 
of this description, we shall simply mention here (1) the 
Arminian school, which counted among its members ex- 
cellent classical scholars, and which cultivated with con- 
siderable success the long-neglected historical element in 
interpretation ; (2) the Coccezan school, which, like the pre- 
ceding, flourished also in Holland, and which spent a vast 
amount of learning upon the idea that the old Covenant 
being a figure of the New, should be interpreted as a con- 
tinuous series of types which foreshadowed the New Dis- 
pensation ;’ (3) the school of the /%efzsts, whose watchword 
was “not to interpret Scripture solely from their creeds, 
and thus erect the genuine popedom in the midst of their 
Church,” * and whose distinct aim was to bring all men into 
direct contact with the sacred text, that they might derive 
from it an increase of spiritual life by searching its mystical 
and typical depths ; (4) the school of Zextual Critics, which 
proved to evidence that the original text of both Testaments 
had suffered in its transmission from exactly the same causes 
as those which have altered the text of every other ancient 
writing; finally, (5) the Syzcretistic school, whose watch- 
words were concord and tolerance, and which admitted as 
authoritative both Holy Writ and the consensus of the first 
five centuries.* Of the Socinian school we shall speak a 
little later, in connection with the origin of Rationalism. 


1 For an able presentation of the positions of the Cocceian school, see FARRAR, loc. 
Cit: pasos, SG. 

2 Cfr. Reuss, ibid., p. 578. 

3 For interesting details concerning the Interpretation of Holy Writ among the Puri- 
tans, cfr. Brracs, General Introduction, p. 459, sqq. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 457 


These more or less orthodox schools ' did not produce the 
same number of remarkable scholars. None of them, how- 
ever, was altogether barren in interpreters of real ability. 
The better-known names among the strict Lutherans are 
those of Nic. Selnekker (7 1592); Dav. Chytraus (f 1600); 
Abr. Calovius (f 1688); and Seb. Schmidt (f 1696); and 
among the less strictly orthodox Lutherans, we may mention 
Georg Calixtus(f 1656), the great leader of the Syncretistic 
movement. Among the Reformed scholars, we must name 
J Piseator Cye1G26);) D.Fareus (} 1622); and M. Amy- 
raut (f 1664); and more particularly, Hugo Grotius (De 
Grool faio4e) sc leticus ():, Ley Clerc, | 1736); and’ J. 
Wetstein (f 1754), the leading members of the Arminian 
school. | As prominent among the Cocceians, we may men- 
tion beside J. Cocceius (Koch, ¢ 1669), Campegius Vitringa 
(for 22) ye Prcune( as 7oo); ands. Van Til (¢ 1723). The 
Pietists possessed such eminent scholars as the two Mich- 
aes (fee ae somancnc Dt 1713), and JA. Bengel 
(erg &2) "ee rinally among the Textual Critics and arche- 
ological writers of the period, we may name particularly 
L. Cappel (f 1658); Brian Walton (+ 1661), the editor 
of the London /olygfot; J. Lightfoot (f 1675) the author 
of the valuable Hore Hebraice et Talmudice; and C. 
Schottgen (f 1751), the writer of a work of similar import 
to that of Lightfoot, and entitled Hore Hebraice et Talmudic 
wn universum ovum Testamentum. 


1 It should be borne in mind that the test of orthodoxy was the creed or confession of 
the leading sect, with which those various schools were more or less identified. 


?'Tne Annotationes in Vetus et Novum Testamentum by Grotius; the Comment- 
ary of Vitringa, on Isaias; and the Gnomon Novi Testamenti of Benvel, still de- 
serve perusal. For further information concerning the leading interpreters of these 
various schools, see Reuss, History of the New Testament; Farrar, History of In- 
terpretation ; Lapp, The Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture, vol. ii; and Dictionaries and 
Cyclopzdias. 


458 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


§ 2. Second Period: Since the Rise of Rationalism. 


I. Origin and Principal Phases of Rationalistic 
Interpretation. With the middle of the eighteenth 
century a new era opened in the history of Biblical Inter- 
pretation. It was now no longer possible to think of the 
original text of the Bible as having been transmitted in its 
primitive purity, and the yoke of the objective standard of 
doctrine embodied in the “ Symbols” or “ Confessions,” 
had gradually become unbearable to many scholars of the 
Lutheran and Reformed churches. These scholars disliked 
sincerely every rule of faith, which, as they thought, could be 
just as erroneous as those “creeds” or ‘“ confessions,” 
which had been imposed by Protestant dogmatists since the 
time of the early reformers, and they instinctively yearned 
for the full enjoyment of the right of private judgment... 
Thus were they carried back to the rejection of every exterior 
authority, that is, to a principle which lay at the very basis of 
the Protestant Reformation, and which will ever be the main 
underlying principle of the Rationalistic method ‘of inter- 
pretation.’ 

Beside this general principle, and indeed as a natural con- 
sequence of it, Rationalism admits that reason alone is the 
means whereby Holy Writ should be interpreted, and that 
Scripture should be understood in harmony with the data of 
human reason. Not only does it affirm that the sacred books 
should be studied from a historical point of view, that is, as 
writings which came into existence in time and which must 
not be comprehended from the standpoint of our own times 
and ways of thinking; it proceeds farther, and contends that 
everything in the Holy Scriptures that would run counter or 
simply transcend the laws of human experience, should not 
be accepted literally, but rather treated as things of the kind 


1 Cfr. Lapp, loc. cit., p. 2:8, sqq. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 459 


are, when met with in confessedly uninspired books. ‘In 
Rationalism,” well remarks Fr. W. Reinhard,’ “ reason is the 
sole arbiter. What reason cannot comprehend and accept, 
can never form part of the Rationalist’s conviction. His 
consciousness is homogeneous, and his intellect consistent 
throughout. To him, Scripture is like any other book. He 
accepts it only when it agrees with his opinions, and then 
only as an illustration and affirmation, not as an authority.” 

However contrary to the personal views of Luther con- 
cerning the Bible, this second principle of Rationalism may 
appear at first sight, it remains true, nevertheless, that it is 
simply a further consequence of the absolute right of private 
judgment, for which the chief leader of Protestantism fought 
so resolutely against Rome and against Melanchthon and 
Calvin. This has been clearly realized by Rationalists, 
with whom it has ever been “a favorite view that the Ref- 
ormation was produced by reason asserting her rights; and 
that it was then an easy step to take, when they claimed as 
much right to use reason within the domain of Protestantism, 
as their fathers possessed when within the pale of Catholic- 
ism.” * Nay, more, it seems that Luther himself admitted 
implicitly this further consequence of his great principle of 
private judgment; when asked by the Elector of Brandeburg 
if it were true that he had said he should not stop unless 
convinced from Scripture, he answered, “ Yes, my _ lord, 
unless I am convinced by clear and evident reasons!” 
Finally, the supremacy of reason over the Bible was so 
natural an outcome of Luther’s principle of private judg- 
ment, that it was formulated and applied, at a very early date, 
by the Socinians. The great leader of this Protestant sect 
was Faustus Socinus (Sozini, ¢ 1604), who, in his various 
writings, ‘‘ made the divine and authoritative character of the 


1 Quotedin ScHarr-HERzoG, Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, art. Rationalism. 
2 J. F. Hurst, History of Rationalism, p. 31. 


460 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


sacred books dependent on their authenticity and on the 
conformity of their contents with man’s reason, so that 
everything in the Bible whichruns counter to or departs from 
reason, does not come from God, and must be set aside.” ’ 
The Socinian doctrines did not play, it is true, a very ap- 
parent part in the history of interpretation during the golden 
age of Protestant scholasticism which soon followed the 
death of the early reformers. Yet, their partisans never 
gave up the fight against the representatives of the Lutheran 


’ or ‘Confessions,’ and were 


and Calvinistic “ Formulas’ 
greatly aided in their efforts to show the supremacy of human 
reason, by the interest which gathered around the rational 
methods advocated by Bacon, Descartes and Wolf, and by 
the influence which was exerted upon the public mind by 
the works of the English deists, the German illuminati, and 
the French philosophers.* Other circumstances of the same 
period contributed much to render the old positions of 
Socinus acceptable to many scholars, who, especially in 
Germany, formed a school of transition between the veterans 
of Protestant dogmatism, and the coming phalanxes of 
Rationalism. They were men who, though accessible to the 
Rationalistic theories, did not allow themselves to be carried 
away by them. “At their head stood Johann August 
Ernesti (f 1791) and their activity began. at Leipsig. 
Rather philologists than theologians, they brought to the 
interpretation of the Scriptures rather taste and conscien- 
tiousness than spiritual depth and philosophical views. Much 
admired in their time as the antipodes of the artificial style 
that was departing, they have long since ceased to satisfy 
our age with their rhetorical superficiality. . . . They were 

1 E. RasBaup, Histoire de la Doctrine de l|’Inspiration des Saintes Ecritures, p. 89. 
The writings of Socinus are found, in the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum quos Uni- 
tarios Vocant (Amsterdam, 1656, sq.). 


? For details concerning these various sources of influence, cfr. Hurst, History of 
Rationalism, 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 461 


soon outstripped, and almost more neutral than conservative, ' 
not only had no claim to enduring influence, but were obliged 
to look on while their weapons, according to the usual course 
of things, were made use of by a more violent party.’’' 

Side by side with this school of transition, flourished a 
more thorough-going school under the leadership of Johann 
Salomo Semler (f 1791), who formulated distinctly the 
Rationalistic views which were, so to speak, everywhere in 
the air, and endeavored to put them on a solid basis. He 
questioned vigorously the extent and authority of the Canon 
of Holy Writ, distinguished between the local and temporary, 
the permanent and eternal, in the Scriptures, and invented 
his famous Accommodation Theory. Whatever defied the 
critic’s acumen or the believer’s spiritual grasp, he explained 
away on the principle that it was local and temporary. 
Whatever in the New Testament transcended or ran counter 
to the philosophical views of his age, he ascribed to the 
desire of Christ or His Apostles to adapt themselves to the 
prejudices or other mistaken notions of their contemporaries, 
and thus reduced their various utterances concerning angels, 
the Messias, demons, the resurrection of the dead, etc., etc., 
to so many accommodations to prevailing errors. 

Instead of calling attention to what then appeared the ob- 
jectionable parts of Revelation, and disposing of them as 
accommodations to current prejudices, the celebrated Imman- 
ucl Kant ({ 1804), endeavored to educe from, or rather 
read into the words of Holy Writ, moral teachings of the 
highest order, as being alone constitutive of religion and 
worthy of the all-perfect revealing God. The only value 
and object of the Bible is, according to him, to introduce, 
illustrate, and confirm the religion or morality of reason, and, 


1 Reuss, History of the Sacred Scriptures of the New Testament, vol. ii, p. 591, sqq. 
The best known scholars beside Ernesti were: J. C. Déderlein (¢ 1792); J. G.and E. 
F. C. Rosenmiiller (+ 1815; + 1835). 


462 SENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


in consequence, it should be interpreted in its various parts 
(historical, dogmatic, prophetic, etc.), so as to yield a sense 
calculated to further man’s morality. 

Kant’s exegetical system, as may easily be noticed, had a 
twofold advantage over that of Semler: it left in the dark 
the difficulties to dogmatic belief which had been made very 
prominent in the latter’s theories, and appealed directly to 
the noblest instincts of our moral nature. It is not there- 
fore surprising to find that it exercised a great influence upon 
subsequent systems of interpretation. On the other hand, its 
utter inadequacy was apparent. to all scholars who were 
familiar with the exegetical difficulties raised by Rationalism, 
and this led to a new attempt to meet the issues which the 
system of Kant had practically refused to deal with. The 
new school of interpretation received the name of psycholo- 
gico-historical, from the twofold leading aspect of its method: 
it regarded the facts recorded in the Bible as indeed Azstor- 
ical, yet as needing to be interpreted by means of psycholog- 
ical data. ‘The substance of the biblical narrative is there- 
fore to be retained as in accordance with actual occurrences, 
but the miraculous dress with which it is invested, should be, 
and can easily be set aside by the interpreter who knows how 
to enter into the frame of mind of the inspired narrator, and 
supply the natural circumstances which must have occurred, 
but which the imagination of the sacred writer caused him 
to take and describe as marvellous facts. The following 
example will show the nature of the system as developed 
chiefly by Eichhorn ({ 1827) and Paulus (f 1851). “It 
exhibits Paulus’ exposition of John vi, 19: When they 
had rowed about five and twenty or thirty stadia (about two 
hours space) they see Jesus walking about over the sea (John 
xxi, 1, on the bank or shore, which is higher than the sea) 

and near the ship (which kept near the shore)." In a 


1 SAMUEL Davipson, loc. cit., p. 198. 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 463 


similar naturalistic way, are the plain statements of extraor- ° 
dinary facts contained in the Bible brought down to the level 
of human experience and comprehension. 

Akin to the foregoing theory is the mythical system of 
interpretation, which was applied to the Old Testament 
chiefly by De Wette ({ 1849), and to the New, by Strauss 
(f 1874). Like the psychologico-historical, the mythical 
theory believes in the sincerity of the biblical narrators, but 
differently from it, regards the very substance of most jmpor- 
tant facts as the product of man’s imagination, though they 
are apparently described as so many occurrences. ‘The 
mythical system as applied to Our Lord’s life by Strauss, in 
his Leben Jesu (1835), has been well summed up as fol- 
lows: ‘“ There was a fixed idea in the Jewish mind, fed on 
the Old Testament writings, that the Messias should perform 
certain miracles,—heal the sick, raise the dead, etc.; there 
was also a strong persuasion in the minds of the disciples of 
Jesus that He was actually the promised Messias. In con- 
sequence, the mythico-poetical faculty invented the miracles 
corresponding to the Messianic conception, and ascribed 
them to Him. 


”* The leading disciples of Strauss in Ger- 


many were Ludwig Feuerbach (f 1872), and Bruno Bauer 
(Tt 1882), who soon showed clearly by the extreme positions 
which they assumed, whither their master’s teaching truly 
led. 

The last Rationalistic system of interpretation to be men- 
tioned is that of Ferdinand Baur (f 1860), whose peculiar 
Tendenz theory was set forth in connection with the last 
stage of the history of the New Testament Canon. His 
method of exegesis is the natural outcome of his critical con- 
clusions about the formation of our New Testament writings. 


t Art. Mythical Theory (the) in ScHarr-HErRzoG, Encyclopedia of Religious Knowl- 
edge. For details concerning this rationalistic system, see Samuel Davipson, On 
Sacred Hermeneutics, p. 206, sqq.; Hurst, History of Rationalism, p. 246, sqq.; Licu- 
TENBL.GER, History of German Theology in the Nineteenth Century, p. 320, sqq. 


464 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


As he admits that they were respectively written /or or 
against the two great parties which existed in the early 
Church, viz., the party of Peter and that of Paul, their his- 
torical character should be studied from that standpoint. 
They are literary productions which bear the impress of the 
time when they were composed, but can be of little use be- 
side making us acquainted with those long-extinguished 
parties.’ 


2. Protestant Exegesis in Germany, England, 
and America. It is not to be supposed that these various 
schools of Rationalism did not meet with numerous and able 
opponents even in Germany, the stronghold of Rationalistic 
exegesis. Despite the great and constant inroads of Rational- 
ism into the cainp of conservative Protestants, excellent 
scholars among them neglected nothing to counteract the 
disastrous influence of unbelieving critics. They followed 
step by step the ever-varying forms of Rationalistic inter- 
pretation, called attention to its a priori principle,—the denial 
of the supernatural,—and_ pointed out the unsatisfactory or 
even extravagant character of its conclusions. ‘To do this 
more effectively, they improved their own methods of study 
by availing themselves of every advance in philology, ‘Textual 
Criticism, history, archeology, etc., which had been achieved 
since the middle of the eighteenth century. The best known 
among these conservative scholars are Havernick (f 1845); 
Stier (f 1862); Hengstenberg (7 1869); Cé&hler (f 1872) ; 
Tholuck (f 1877); Philippi (f 1882); Keil (f 1888); and 
Delitzsch (f 18g90).” It cannot be denied, however, that 

1 The history of the Schools of Higher Criticisue will be given in the forthcoming 
volumes on SfeciéaZ Introduction. 

2 The titles of their principal works are given by A. Cave, Introduction to Theology. 
Most of them have been rendered into English, and are published by T. T. Clark, 
Edinburgh. Somewhat less conservative are the following German scholars: Ebrard; 


Lange, Meyer, Olshausen, Riehm, Strack, and Weiss: most of their works have also 
appeared in English translations. ; 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 465 


during the last ten years, Rationalistic exegesis seems to 
have got the upper hand in German universities to an extent 
unknown up to that time. 

The case stands differently in England and America, 
where the various Protestant denominations have preserved 
much of their Confessional spirit. In Great Britain, among 
the more conservative scholars may be mentioned Alford, 
Beet, F. C. Cook, A. B. Davidson, Ellicott, Fausset, Gloag, 
Lightfoot, Perowne, Plummer, Plumptre, Salmon, Swete, 
Westcott, and Wordsworth. Among the less conservative, 
Bruce, Dods, Cheyne, Driver, Kirkpatrick, Sanday, and 
Stanley. Among American interpreters of the more con- 
servative type may be named, Alexander, Green, Hackett, 
Hovey, Robinson, Schaff, Moses Stuart, Terry, and Whedon ; 
and among the less conservative, Briggs, E. P. Gould, Moore, 
Toy, and H. P. Smith.’ 7 


3. Interpretation among Catholics. While Ration- 
alistic Protestants drew from the principles of Luther the 
logical consequences therein contained, and conservative 
Protestants were saved from similar denials of supernatural 
Revelation only because they clung to the authority of their 
respective “ Formulas ” or “ Confessions of Faith,’ Catholic 
scholars moved securely on the lines of patristic tradition, 
such as they had been re-stated by the Council of Trent, 
and acted upon by the great commentators of the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries. Beside this great safeguard, 
they have enjoyed, especially in the century just coming to 
a close, the precious advantage of having at their disposal 
for interpreting the sacred text, the data of history, 
geography, archeology, etc., to an extent unknown to their 
predecessors. Again, as the polemics of conservative Prot- 
estants were chiefly directed against Rationalism, Catholic 


1 For references to their works, see Cavr, ibid. 


466 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


scholars were able to draw from such conservative sources, 
valuable arguments against the enemies of divine Revelation. 
Finally, as the exegetical method almost invariably followed 
by Catholic commentators during this last period, has been 
that of the Antiochian school and of the excellent Catholic 
interpreters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they 
have been chiefly concerned with the literal sense, studying 
it in the light of the context, of parallel passages, of linguis- 
tics, etc.; and some of their productions can compare in 
value with those of the best scholars of the day outside the 
Church. | 

We subjoin a select list of the most important works in 
German, French, English and Latin, which Catholic com- 
mentators have published during the nineteenth century: 


TAIN GICR NLA 


Aug. BISPING, Exeget. Handb. zum N. T. (2d Edit. 1867, sqq.). 

BICKELL: Der Prediger (1885); Job (1894); Die Sprtiche, etc. 

GUTBERLET: Das Buch der Weisheit (1874); Das Buch Tobias 
(1877). 

Adalb. MAIER: Johan., Roem., I, II Corinth., Hebraebr. (1847- 
1865). 

NETELER: ¥zechiel (1870); Die Buch. der Chronik (1872); 
Esdr., Nehem., und Esther (1877); Der Proph. Isaias (1876). 

ROHLING: Das Salom. Sprtichbuch (1879); Daniel (1876). 

SCHANZ: Matth. (1879); Marcus (1881); Lucas (1883); Johann 
(1885). 

SCHOLZ: Comment. zum Joel (1885); Jerem. (1880); Hoseas 
(1882). 

THALHOFER: Erklarung der Psalmen (1880). 


IL, INGRRENCHs. 


La SAINTE BIBLE (Lethielleux, Paris, 25 vols.) A Commentary on 
all the books of the Old and New Test., by CLAIR, CRELIER, 
FILLION, DRACH, LESETRE, and TROCHON. 

DEHAUT: I’Evangile Expliqué, Défendu, Medité (4 vols.). 

Morals: l’Ecclésiaste (2 vols., 1876). 


BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 467 


FILLION: Les Psaumes Commentés (1893). 

FOUARD: Vie de Notre Seigneur J.-C. (2 vols.) ; St. Pierre: St. 
Paul (2 vols.). 

LE H1ir: Etudes Bibliques (2 vols., 1869); Job (1873); Les 
Psaumes (1876); Isaie, Jeremie, Ezechiel, (1877); Le Cantique 
des Cantiques (1883). 

Loisy: Le Livre de Job (1892); Les Evangiles Synoptiques ; 
Histoire du Canon, etc. 

VIGOUROUX: Manuel Biblique; Bible et Découvertes Modernes, 
etc. 


Ill. IN ENGLISH; 


KENRICK: Commentary on the Entire Bible. 

McEVILLY: An Exposition of the Epistles of St. Paul and the 
Catholic Epistles (2 vols., 1875); An Exposition of the Gospels 
(3 vols., 1888, sq.). 

Maas: Christ in Type and Prophecy (2 vols., 1893); On St. 
Matthew (1898). 

H. J. COLERIDGE: Works on the Life of Christ. 

Jos. RICKABY: Notes on St. Paul (Corinthians; Galat.; Rom., 
1898). 

BERN. WARD: St. Luke, (1897); one of the volumes of St. 
Edmund's College Series of Scripture Handbooks. 


IVS INGEAM IN: 


SCRIPTURZ SACRA CURSUS COMPLETUS, auctoribus R. 
CORNELY, G. KNABENBAUER, Fr. DE HUMMELAUER, aliis- 
que Societatis Jesu presbyteris. A Commentary on the whole 
Bible, not yet completed. 

BEELEN: In Philip., In Rom. (1852-1854); In Acta Apostolorum 
(1850). 

CORLUY: Comm. in Evangelium S. Joannis (1878); Spicilegium 
Dogmatico-Biblicum (2 vols., 1884). 

KAULEN: Liber Jonze prophetz (1862). 

NICKES: De Libro Judithe (1854); De Libro Estnere (1856). 

PATRIZI (Card.): De Evangeliis (1853); In Acta Comm. (1867). 

VAN STEENKISTE: In Librum Psalmorum (3 vols., 1870); In 
Evangel. S. Matt. (4 vols., 1876); In S. Pauli Epistolas (2 vols. 
4th. edit., 1886); In Catholicas Epistolas. 





PART FOURTH. 


BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 


SY NOPSIS“OF CHAP [i kv xx. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 


1% 
Inrtropucrory 4 2: General Notion of Inspiration (its Difference from 
Revelation), 
REMARKS: 
TT? 


FIRST PERIOD: 
1. Statements of the Sacred Books. 


BEFORE THE 
2. Opinions of Jewish Rabbis. 


COMPLETION 


OF THE BreLE: | 








Ilr. ( 
1. Christian The Men and their Writings. 
SECOND Writers of 
the first two How far the Inheritors of Jewish 
PERIOD : Centuries : Tradition ? 
BEFORE THE the Schools of Alexandria and 
2. The Views and Antioch. 
RISE OF Influence of 
St. Jerome and St. Augustine. 
PROTESTANT- 
3. The Middle Ages. 
ISM: 
Assertions of the Early Reformers 
Iv and their Immediate Followers. 
’ I. Outside 
the 5 Strict Views of Con- 
PeRD Church : Pupiarrae | servatives. 
PrEioDS Sie Rise and Growth of 
; z [ Rationalism. 
SEN RUE Influence of Tradition upon Catholic 
t Scholars. 
pe aeN ot 2. Within the } Difference of Views as to the Extent 
aes ; Church : of Inspiration. 
EEE: The Council of the Vatican and since 
then. 


470 


CHAPTER XX. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 
§ 1. Lntroductory Remarks. 


1. General Notion of Inspiration (ts difference from 
Revelation). ‘The word “inspiration,” like many other 
theological terms, is derived from the Latin Vulgate, which 
uses the expression “ divinitus 7zzspzrata’’—a literal render- 
ing of the Greek word 6:6zvevcrvs—in a passage where St. 
Paul describes the action of God in the composition of 
Scripture.’ It conveys the general idea of a divine “ breath- 
ing into” (spzrare, in) the sacred writers, somewhat analo- 
gous to the action by which God is represented as breathing 
man’s soul into his body (Gen. ii, 7; Wisdom xv, rr), and 
as “ giving understanding ” to men (Job xxxii, 8). It does 
not necessarily imply the communication. of a permanent 
divine gift, but rather suggests a transient influence by 
virtue of which works so written may rightly be called “the 
oracles of God.” ” 

The same general notion of Inspiration is plainly suggested 
by another passage, in the rendering of which the Latin Version’ 
uses also the participial form of the verb “ inspirare.” It is in 
the Second Epistle of St. Peter (i, 21), where we read: “ Spiritu 
sancto inspirati (dx0 Ivenpatog aytov gepdyevor), locutt sunt 
sancti Dei homines.” We learn distinctly here that the holy 


1“ Omnis Scriptura divinitus inspirata ”’ (II Tim. iii, 16). 


2 Rom. iii, 2. 


471 


472 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY. SCRIPTURES. 


men of God, i. e., the Old Testament prophets, spoke as the 
result of a divine “afflatus.” They were borne along as a 
ship is carried by a strong wind, by a power which was no 
other than that of the Holy Ghost, so that their words were 


truly ‘“divinitus inspirata.”’ ’ 


We learn, moreover, particu- 
larly from the context, that, according to St. Peter, the posi- 
tive divine influence which we call inspiration, and which 
was exercised upon special men, had for its purpose to en- 
able them to transmit their knowledge to others. This is, 
in fact, the main feature which distinguishes the supernatural 
gift of inspiration from that of .Revelation. . By Revelation 
is understood a direct communication from God to man, 
either of such knowledge as man could not of himself attain 
to, because its subject-matter transcends human sagacity or 
human reason (such, for example, as the prophetical an- 
‘“nouncements of the future, the mysteries of the Christian 
‘faith, etc.), or, which (although it might be attained in the 
ordinary way) was not, in point of fact known to the person 
who received the Revelation. By inspiration, on the other 
hand, is meant that actuating energy of the Holy Spirit, by 
‘the influence of which men especially selected by God pro- 
claimed His will by word of mouth, or committed to writing 
the various portions of the Bible. “Itis quite true,” accord- 
ing to the judicious words of the translators of SCHANZ’S 
Christian Apology, “that, ina general sense, the recipients of 
Revelation and the message they receive, may be, and are 
commonly said to be, inspired ; but we must not lose sight 
‘of the fact that, in so calling them, we are prescinding from 
the specific concept of inspiration. An inspired book—for 
here we have to deal exclusively with books—means some- 
thing else than a book containing divine Revelation, even 
though there be nothing in the book but what has been 


1 Cfr. T. G. Rooxg, Inspiration and other Lectures, p. 120, sq.; C. CHAuvIN, L’Inspi- 
ration des Divines Ecritures, p. 2, sq. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 473 


divinely revealed. The recipient of God’s words might, of 
his own accord, write down, and that, too, most faithfully, 
the truths mysteriously communicated by God; and, inas- 
much as such a record would contain divine truth, it would 
doubtless be a divine book; not for that, however, would 
the volume be inspired. For the inspiration of a book it is 
required that the divine message should have been given with 
a view to its subsequent transmission by writing. « . .. Thus, 
inspiration does not directly and immediately fall upon the 
material contents, but on their formal enunciation in writing. 
In this view of the matter, it is quite plain that Revelation is 
not identical with inspiration, and that a book may contain 
revealed truth, while yet failing to be an inspired book.” ? 
“In many cases,” as E. LEvESQUE judiciously remarks, 
‘a revelation will not be necessary to the sacred writer; he 
knows the things naturally, either as a witness, or by the 
affirmation of others, or by reliable documents; he needs 
_only inspiration. . . . Revelation never constitutes inspira- 
tion: they are two things quite distinct, just like to receive 
truth and to transmit it.”’” 

Biblical Inspiration must therefore be conceived as a 
divine and positive influence exerted upon special men for 
the purpose of transmitting truth by writing to their fellow- 
men. ‘This is obviously only a general notion of Biblical 
Inspiration; but it is sufficient to enable the student to 
profit by the following brief sketch of the various concep- 
tions held as to the nature of inspiration. 


§ 2. first Period: Biblical Inspiration before the Completion 
of the Bible. 


I. Statements of the Sacred Books. A careful 
examination of the Canonical Books of the Old Testament 
1 Preface to English translation of vol, ii, pp. vi, vii. 


2 KE. Levesque, Essai sur la Nature de V’Inspiration des Livres Saints, p. 5 (p. 7 in 
the Engl. Transl.). 


474 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


proves that they contain only a small number of statements 
which may be considered as bearing witness to their in- 
spiration. Thus in the law of Moses there are only two 
statements, viz.: Exod. xvil, 14; and xxxiv, 27, wherein it is 
expressly said that the great lawgiver of Israel was directed 
by God to write parts of our Pentateuch. The other pass- 
ages sometimes referred to in this connection are not to the 
point, inasmuch as they either state that Moses received 
mission to impart a divine message to Israel by word of mouth 
(cfr. Deuter. v, 31), or simply affirm that he wrote certain 
passages now found in our books of Moses (cfr. Exod. xxiv, 
3,4, 73 Numb. xxxti, 2’; Deutersxxx1, g, 22,24): an neither 
does it appear that God gave him commission to write such 
passages for the instruction of others, as would be required 
to invest them with an inspired character.’ In like manner, 
the few statements of the book of Josue (1, 7, 8; vill, 31; 
xxxiv, 26), which refer to the writings of Moses or to those 
of his successor in command, as they do not mention this 
divine commission to write, should not be considered as 
bearing direct witness to their inspiration. 

It is only when one comes to the writings of the greater 
and the smaller prophets, that he meets again with explicit 
declarations that “men of God” received from Him the ex- 
press command to record their message to Israel (cfr. for 
example Isai. viii, 1; xxx, 8; Jerem. xxxvi,, 1-4; 27,28, 32; 
Ezech. xxiv, 1, 2; Habac. ii, 2). These and other such 
passages testify in favor only of the inspired character of 
those portions of the prophetical writings to which they 
refer, and the same must probably be said of Isai. xxxiv, 16, 
where we find the expression “the book of Yahweh:” in 
this, as in the other passages just mentioned, not an entire 
book, but only a relatively short section of a prophetical writ- 


1Cfr. Drxon, A General Introduction to the Sacred Scriptures, p. 24 (Baltimore, 
1853). 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 475 


ing is apparently referred to. he case is different with 
Daniel ix, 2, where we are told that the prophet “ understood 
by the books the number of the years, concerning which the 
word of Yahweh came to Jeremias, . . . that seventy years 
should be accomplished of the desolation of Jerusalem.” At 
the time when the prophecy of Daniel was composed, the ex- 
pression “the books ” was already applied to writings whose 
inspired character was universally admitted, and in this 
particular passage (Daniel ix, 2), it most likely designates 
the Books of Moses.’ 

If we leave aside, as too indirect, the passages of Ecclesias- 
ticus and Wisdom which have sometimes been pointed out as 
affirming the inspired character of the Old Testament,’ there 
remains only one scriptural statement to be mentioned in 
that connection. It is found in the Second Book of the 
Machabees (villi, 23), where the expression “the Sacred 
Book,” points, no doubt, to a general belief of the time— 
clearly shared in by the sacred writer—that the book thus 
referred to is really inspired. 

In the writings of the New Testament, as in those of the 
Old, there are but few explicit testimonies to the inspired 
character of the books of the old Covenant. One of these 
is contained in the Gospels, viz.: in St. Matt. xxil, 43, where 
Jesus says of David that he spoke “in spirit” (cfr. the 
parallel expression in St. Mark xii, 36 ‘“ David saith by the 
Holy Ghost”), Another testimony is supplied by St. Paul, 
in his Second Epistle to Timothy (ii, 16), when he writes: 
‘All Scripture inspired of God is profitable to teach,” etc. ; ° 
and this second testimony has the advantage over the one 
just mentioned, that it affirms the divine origin of the Ca- 
nonical Books of the Old Testament generally. In like man- 


1 Cfr. A. A. Bevan, A Short Commentary on the Book of Daniel, pp. 145, sq.; 149. 

2 Cfr. W. Leg, The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, p. 62, sq. 

3 The phrase may also be rendered: “ All Scripture is inspired of God axd profit- 
able... .”’ And is wanting in the Vulgate. 


476 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 


ner St. Peter, both in his second epistle (i, 20, sq.), and in 
his second public discourse (Acts iil, 18-24) bears distinct 
witness to the divine influence by means of which the sacred 
writers of the Old Dispensation composed their works. 
These various texts will be examined more at length in the 
sequel. 

The foregoing are not, however, the only valid testimonies 
which the writings of the New Testament contain in favor 
of the inspiration of those of the Old. In view of the fact 
stated above, to wit: that the expressions “the Books,” 
“the Sacred Book,” etc., were currently used among the 
Jews to denote the supernatural origin of their canonical 
writings, it may readily be admitted that the similar ex- 
pressions, such as ‘Holy Scripture, 7“ the Scripturey’*“ the 
written Word,” * which the New Testament employs in speak- 
ing of the same writings, have not a different meaning, and 
therefore tell in favor of the inspired character of the Ca- 
nonical Books of the Old Testament. This inference appears 
all the stronger because Our Lord Himself refers to Moses 
and the prophets without distinguishing God’s Word from 
the writer’s, saying, “It is written ;” ‘the Scripture says,” 
etc.; and also because the New ‘Testament writers do so 
after the exampie of their divine Master. 

“Of its own inspiration, the New Testament naturally 
contains no direct proof, unless the beginning of the Apoc- 
alypse is a case in point.” If I Tim. v, 18 were a quotation 
of St. Luke, it would put his Gospel on a level with the Old 
Testament. But, as the passage contains a previous quota- 
tion from the Old ‘Testament, there is still room for doubt. 
. . . St. Paul’s occasional reference to the Spirit of God 


1 Cir; Romi, © chive spwucea 7s Galatia sme) Dehli omens Ct Se Lier) wivers ce 
etc., etc. 

2“ The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him, to make known to His 
servants .. . and signified, sending by His angel, to His servant John” (Apoc. i, 1). 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 477 


which he claims to possess, is not made for the purpose of 
proving that his letters were inspired, but in order to claim 
divine authority for his Apostolic action generally :' ‘I think 
that I also have the Spirit of God,’ (I Cor. vii, 40) he says; 
and he speaks of himself as one having obtained mercy to 
be faithful Gbid. vii, 25). In the introduction of the Epistle 
to the Galatians he appeals to the divine origin of his Gospel. 
Now this Gospel was first and chiefly his oral preaching to the 
heathen seer eter (Second Hpist,1i1, 15, 16), 00, places 
the epistles of Paul on a level with ‘the other Scriptures,’ 
and says that Paul ‘according to the wisdom given him, 
hath written to you.’ ” * 

It should be noticed at the end of this rapid survey of the 
scriptural statements in favor of the inspired character of our 
Canonical Books, that none of the sacred writers professes at 
any time to be distinctly conscious of his own inspiration. 


2. Opinions of Jewish Rabbis concerning Bibli- 
cal Inspiration. The foregoing exposition of the testi- 
monies which the writers of the Bible give directly to its 
inspiration, is in harmony with the manner in which Jewish 
tradition speaks of the Canonical Books of. the Old Testa- 
ment. The first trace of this tradition is found in a letter 
of the Babylonian exiles which the book of Baruch has pre- 
served to us, and in which Moses is represented as receiving 
a divine command to “write the law” of Jehovah.’ In 
another letter, that of the high priest Jonathan to the 
Lacedemonians, the several books of the Canon of the Old 
Testament are called “the Holy Books,”’* an expression 
‘characteristic. of the tone of thought which marks the 
Judaism of this period, which founded its high esteem for 


1 P, ScHanz, A Christian Apology, vol. iii, p. 407, sq. (Eng. Transl., 2d edit.). Cfr 
George T. Lapp, The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i, p. 210, sq. 

2 BARUCH ii, 28. 

3 This letter is given in I Machab. xii, 5, sqq. 


478 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


the Canonical Scriptures upon their holiness, their divine 
origin, their inspiration.”! Together with this formula 
“the Holy Books,” Philo, the celebrated Alexandrian Jew 
(about 20 B.c. to 40 A.D.), uses such expressions as “ the 
Holy Scriptures,” “the Holy Writings,” ‘“ the Divine Word,” 
“the Inspired Oracle,” “the Holy Oracles the most trustful 
witnesses ;” etc., etc., all clearly indicative of the sacred 
and inspired character which he, and his contemporaries, as- 
cribed to the Canonical Books of the Old Testament.” Philo 
goes even farther and gives a theory of inspiration, in which 
he uses the reflections of Plato upon the pagan inspiration 
or pavta to illustrate the Jewish doctrine. According to 


him, inspiration is a kind of “ ecstasy,” 


and the greater the 
degree of inspiration with which one is favored, the greater 
also the unconsciousness or at least the passivity of the man 
inspired. “The prophet,” he says, “does not speak any 
words of his own, he is only the instrument of God, who in- 
spires and who speaks through him.”3 Yet Philo admits 
degrees of imspiration, assigns to Moses the first place in 
the scale of inspired writers, and thinks that the very words 
of the Old Testament are inspired of God.* 

The positions of Josephus regarding the authority of the 
Old Testament and the nature of the divine influence which 
actuated the prophets, coincide with those of Philo. Josephus 
speaks of Moses as a prophet so exalted, that his words: 
should be considered as those of God.’ He says that “they 
are only prophets who have written the original and earliest 
accounts of things as they learned them of God Himself by 


inspiration. .. .” He then goes on telling of the twenty- 


1 HAVERNICK, quoted by Lex, The Inspiration of Holy Scripture, p. 63, footn. 3. 

2 The references to Philo’s works are found in H. E. Ry eg, Philo and Holy Scripture, 
D. xvi. 

3 De Specialibus Legibus, § 8. 

4 Cfr. Vita Moysis, Book ii, § 7. 

5 Antiq. of the Jews, Book iv, chap. viii, § 49. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 479 


two Jewish books “which are justly believed to be divine 

..’ and of the attachment of all the Jews to their sacred 
writings: “ how firmly,” says he, “ we have ‘given credit to 
these books of our nation is evident by what we do. For 
during so many ages as have already passed, no one has 
been so bold as either to add anything to them, or to take 
anything from them, or to make any change in them; but 
it is become natural to all Jews, immediately, and from their 
birth, to esteem those books to contain divine doctrines, 
and to persist in them, and, if occasion be, willingly to 
die for them.”’! 

It is beyond doubt that these views of Josephus con- 
cerning the inspired character of the Canonical Books of 
the Old Testament, though expressed in a popular and 
‘“ Grecianized ”’ form, were substantially those admitted by 
the rabbis of his time and by his countrymen generally.’ 
‘That the rabbis entertained the same views of inspiration, 
appears not only from the distinctive name of ‘ Holy Writ- 
ings’ given by them to the Scriptures, but also from the 
directions that their touch defiled the hands,” * so that they 
may not be touched inconsiderately, but with religious awe. 
The whole Pentateuch was especially regarded as dictated 
by God, and even the last eight verses of Deuteronomy, in 
which the death of Moses is recorded, were said to have 
been written by Moses himself by means of divine Revelation. 
All the other books were, however, cited with the same 
formula‘as “the Law” itself, and were considered as truly 
inspired." 

' Against Apion, §§ 7, 8. Like Philo, Josephw affirms that the prophets were un- 
conscious and passive vehicles of the divine message (Antiq. of the Jews, Book iv, chap. 
Wile SaSi eter) 

2 Cfr. the peculiar expressions of the Sanhedrists in St. John ix, 28, 29; and the words 
of St. Paul to Timothy (Second Epist. iti, 15). 

3 A, EpERSHEMm, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. ii, p. 685. 


4 For details, see ScHtirER, The Jewish Peoplein the Time of Christ, Divis. ii, vol. i, 
pp. 307-312 (Eng. Transl.). 


480 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Finally, that the notion of Biblical Inspiration implied in 
the eyes of the Jewish rabbis the inspiration of the very 
words of Holy Writ, is plain (1) from the fact that they drew 
arguments from single words of the canonical writings ;’ (2) 
from the agreement as to words which the Septuagint trans- 
lators were said to have reached under divine guidance in 
rendering independently into Greek the sacred books of 
the Jews; (3) finally, from the manner in which the last 
chapter of the fourth book of Esdras represents this great 
scribe of Israel rewriting under God’s dictation the twenty- 
four books of the Palestinian Canon.’ 


§ 3. Second Period: Liblical Inspiration before the Rise of 
Protestantism. 


1. The Christian Writers of the First Two 
Centuries. The idea of inspiration, which we have thus 
far seen reflected in the sacred writings themselves and 
in Jewish tradition, was naturally adopted by the early con- 
verts to Christianity. On embracing the faith, men like 
Clement of Rome, Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch, 
and the authors of the epistle ascribed to Barnabas and of 
the Pastor of Hermas, were taught by.word of mouth, and 
by perusal of the Canonical Books, to look upon these same 
books as not simply containing revealed doctrine, but also as 
having been composed under the positive. influence of God’s 
Holy Spirit. This doctrine they readily admitted, and by 
reason of the special character of their own writings, which 
were practical and expository, they naturally did but re-echo 
what they had been taught regarding Biblical Inspiration, 
and did not offer any theory as to its intimate nature. In 
fact all their allusions to inspiration are incidental. Thus, 


1 Cfr. St. Paul’s argument in Galat. iii, 16. 
2 TV Esdras xiv, 19-47. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 481 
5 


St. Clement of Rome quotes many passages from Scripture : 
with the words: “for the Scripture saith ;” * “ by the testi- 
mony of Scripture;” “the Holy Spirit saith.” * Again, he 
exhorts his readers to “look carefully into the Scriptures. 
which are the true utterances of the Holy Spirit.” ° 

“The short and affecting epistle of Polycarp contains little 
which illustrates our subject, though he tells us, with touch- 
ing humility, that ‘neither he nor any like him is able to 
attain perfectly to the wisdom of the blessed and glorious 
Paul ° (contrast II Pet. iii, 15,-16)," and seems for once to 
burn with the zeal of his master, when he declares that ‘ he 
is the first-born of Satan whoever perverts the oracles of the 
Lord. .....’* The last quotation 1s valuable, for, when 
compared with passages of Clement (I Cor. lili, xix), it proves 
that the same term (ca Adyra) was used in quoting the Old 
and New Scriptures. Again, Polycarp writes:° ‘that he 
trusts his hearers are well versed in the sacred writings,’ 
alleging at the same time, Ps. iv, 4; Ephes. iv, 26.’” 

St. Ignatius, in his letter to the Magnesians,° speaks of 
“the divinest prophets who lived according to Jesus Christ 
. . . being inspired by His grace;” and in his epistle to 
the Philadelphians,’ he says that “the beloved prophets 
announced Him (Christ); but the Gospel is the perfection 
of immortality.” 

More explicit than Ignatius is the author of the epistle 
ascribed to Barnabas. He uses such phrases as the follow- 
ing when quoting Holy Writ: “The Lord saith in the proph- 
et” (Ps. .xvil, 45); “the Spirit of the Lord proclaims ” 

1T Cor. chaps. xxiii, xxxiv. 

2 Ibid., chaps. xiii, xvi. 

8 Ibid., chap. xlv. 

4 PotycarpP, Epistle to the Philippians, chap. iii. 

6 Tbid., chap. vii. 

6 Ibid., chap. xii. 

7 WestcoTtT, Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, Appendix B. 


8 Chap. viii. Sr Chiapet&s 


31 


¥ 


482 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

(Psi xxxiiijvrs)* ~He affirms thatr Moses spoke vinatic 
SDiLLE a 
in many passages of “the Law” andthe history of the Jews. 


and he accordingly recognizes a spiritual meaning 


In fact, it is impossible to read this epistle throughout, with- 
out feeling that its author is animated with a strong convic- 
tion that all the Canonical Scriptures are inspired. 

Finally, “the Shepherd of Hermas evinces by its form 
and reception the belief of the primitive age in the nature 
and possibility of inspiration. . . . Its existence is a distinct 
proof of the early recognition of a prophetic power some- 
where existent in the Church.” * 

When the Apostolic Fathers give way to the apologetical 
writers, opinions as to the nature of inspiration begin to 
appear. ‘Thus St. Justin, the first of the apologists whose 
writings have come down to us, not only quotes Scripture in 
such singularly expressive manner as the ‘“‘ above-mentioned 
prophet and king (David) speaks thus by the spirit of proph- 
ecy;”* ‘the holy spirit of prophecy taught us this, tell- 
ing us by Moses;”° “the prophet Isaias being divinely 
inspired by the same Spirit;”*® etc., etc.; but he offers an 
explanation of the psychological process going on in the 
mind of the inspired writers. In his /irst Apology,’ he 
says that “ when you hear the utterances of the prophets 
spoken as it were personally, you must not suppose that they 
proceed from the men who are inspired, but from the divine 
Word who moves them.” Elsewhere, viz., in his Hortatory 
Address to the Greeks, he explains his theory more fully: 
“Neither by nature,” says he, “nor by human thought can 


1 Epistle of Barnabas, chap. ix. 

? Barnabas, chap. x. 

3 Westcott. loc. cit. 

4 First Apology, chap. xl. 5 Tbid., chap. xliv. 

§ Tbid., chap. xxxv. Chap. xxxvil 

8 Chap. viii' It must be said, however, that this work is not regarded by all as 
Justin’s. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 483 


men recognize such great and divine truths, but by the gift 
which came down from above upon the holy men, who needed 
neither art of words, nor skill in captious and contentious 
speaking, but only to offer themselves in purity tothe energy 
of the Divine Spirit, in order that the divine power of itself 
might reveal to us the knowledge of divine and heavenly 
things, acting on just men as a plectrum on a harp or lyre.” 

In like strain, another Christian apologist, Athenagoras 
(fl. 2d cent.), describes the Jewish prophets as men who, 
‘while entranced and deprived of their natural powers of 
reason by the influence of the Divine Spirit, uttered that 
which was wrought in them, the Spirit using them as its in- 
struments, as a flute-player breathes into a flute.” ’ A little 
before, the same apologetical writer says, “ we have witnesses 
of our creed, prophets who, inspired by the Spirit, have 
spoken of God and the things of God. And you will admit 

. that it would be irrational for us to cease to believe 
in the Spirit from God, who moved the mouths of the proph- 
ets like musical instruments, and to give heed to mere 
human opinions.” 

The last apologetical writer to be mentioned is St. The- 
ophilus of Antioch, who, about the middle of the second cen- 
tury, addressed his admirable defence of Christianity to a 
heathen named Autolycus. According to him, “ the con- 
tents of the Prophets and of the Gospels are found to be 
consistent, because all the writers spoke by the inspiration 
of the one Spirit of God.”’* In another passage, he speaks 
of “ the words of the prophets as the words of God.” * Again, 
he describes the gift of inspiration in about the same manner 
as Justin and Athenagoras, when he says:* ‘“ The men of 


1 A Plea for the Christians, chap. viii. 

2 Tbid., chap. vii. 8 Ad Autolycum, Book iii, chap. xii. 
* Ibid., Book ii, chap. xxxiv (Cfr. also Book i, chap. xiv). 

5 Ibid., Book ii, chap. ix. 


484 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


God, borne along by the Holy Spirit, and gifted with proph- 
ecy, having inspiration and wisdom from God, were taught 
of Him and became holy and just. Wherefore, also, they 
were deemed worthy to be made the instruments of God 
and receive the wisdom which cometh from Him, by which 
wisdom they spoke of the creation of the world and all other 
things. .. . And there was not one or two, but many, at 
various times and seasons among the Hebrews, and also 
among the Greeks there was the Sibyl.” 

It was only natural that men educated in the principles of 
heathen philosophy, such as the apologists just quoted, 
should, especially when writing controversial works against 
the heathen, apply their early belief about the pagan pavta 
to explain or define the Christian idea of inspiration. This 
is, in fact, suggested by the last words of Theophilus re- 
garding the Sibyl of the Greeks, and by references of St. 
Justin to the Sibyl and Hystaspes (Cfr. /irst Apology of 
Justin, chaps. xx, xliv). It is highly probable, however, 
that their own theory as to the nature of Biblical Inspiration 
was directly borrowed from the tradition of the Jewish 
rabbis, and particularly from the works of the celebrated 
Alexandrian Jew, Philo, whose very expressions they re- 
produce.’ 

As belonging also to the second century we must mention 
St. Irenaeus, the holy Bishop of Lyons, who clearly shows 
himself independent of Alexandrian influence.” He wrote 
not against pagan unbelievers, but against heretics, who, 
though rejecting many Catholic truths, still preserved a dis- 
tinct belief in the inspiration of Holy Writ. This accounts, 
no doubt, for the fact that he never treats the topic, as we 

1 Compare in particular the expressions of St. Justin with those of Philo, when the 
latter describes the Hebrew prophet as one who ‘‘ does not speak’ any words of his own, 
but is only an instrument of God, who inspires and who speaks through him.” 


2 A similar independence of Irenzus of Alexandrian influence has been already noticed 
in connection with his manner of interpreting Holy Writ (cfr. chap. xviii, § 1). 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 485 


would say, ex professo, but simply refers occasionally to it. 
He maintains that “all who foretold the coming of Christ re- 


$9 1 


ceived their inspiration from the Son, and that “the 
Scriptures are indeed perfect, since they were uttered (dcf@) 
by the Word of God and His Spirit.”’* In one passage, he 
even tells us that Matthew might certainly have said, ‘“‘ Now 
the birth of /esws was on this wise;” but the Holy Spirit, 
foreseeing the corrupters of the truth, and guarding by antici- 
pation against their deceit, says by Matthew, ‘ But the birth 
Yet he admits that “from 


many instances, we may discover that the Apostle (St. Paul) 


of Christ was on this wise.” ® 


frequently uses hyperbata on account of the rapidity of his 
sentences and of the vehemence of the spirit which is in 


Titi pra ee 


When these and other such passages of St. 
Irenzus are allowed their full weight, they seem to point to 
the two following conclusions: (1) he believes no less sin- 
cerely than the other Catholic writers of the second century 
in the inspiration of Holy Writ; (2) but more distinctly 
than they, he admits, together with this divine element, an- 
other, a human element, so to speak, which he recognizes 


particularly in connection with the epistles of St. Paul. 


2. Patristic Doctrine of Inspiration during the 
Following Centuries. As in the first two, so in the 
subsequent centuries, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church 
are unanimous in proclaiming the inspired character of the 
Canonical Scriptures. This is the case, for instance, with 
the Italian writers Caius (fl. 210),° Novatian (fl. 251),' 


1 Against Heresies, Book iv, chap. vii, § 2. 

2 Ibid., Book ii, chap. xxviii, § 2. 

3 Tbid., Book iii, chap. xvi, § 2. 

4 Ibid., Book iii, chap. vii, § 2. 

5 The testimony of Caius is given in Eusrsius, Ecclesiastical History, Book v, chap. 
XXVili. 

6 Cfr. his treatise On the Trinity, chap. xxviii. 


486 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


and St. Hippolytus of Porto (f 230);’ and with the North- 
African Latin writers, Tertullian (f ab. 220),* and St. 
Cyprian (f 258).° 

The same must be said of the two great teachers of the 
Alexandrian school, Clement (f ab. 220), and Origen 
(Ft 254), who expressly maintained the inspiration of Holy 
Writ, despite the many difficulties which they met in their 
scientific study of the sacred text. It was their purpose 
to reconcile Greek culture with Christianity, and this led 
them to frame theories which exercised considerable influence 
during their lifetime and afterwards. The principal views 
of Clement in this connection may be briefly stated as 
follows : Although Greek philosophy and prophets may be 
traced back to God’s providence in the world, yet they are 
very inferior to the Revelation and the prophets of Israel: * 
the former were but an indirect, the latter a direct prepara- 
tion for Christ. God spoke to men in the Law, the Prophets 
and the Psalms, so that Holy Writ offers a secure basis to 
our faith: ‘ Not one tittle of the Scriptures,” says he, “ shall 
pass without being fulfilled, for the mouth of the Lord, the 
Holy Spirit, spoke it.” ° Elsewhere, he affirms that “ there 
is no discord between the Law and the Gospel, because 
they both proceed from one and the same author, God.” ° 
The divine influence which he recognizes as exerted upon 
the sacred writers, he considers as far different from the 
pagan ecstasis, for, according to him, the ecstatic state is 


1Jn his treatise On Christ and Antichrist ($ 2), Hippolytus says that the sacred 
writers “ having been perfected by the spirit of prophecy . . . were brought into inner 
harmony, like instruments, and having the Word within them as a plectrum, were moved 
by Him and announced that which God wished. For they did not speak of their own 
power nor proclaim that which they wished themselves.” 

2 In his Apology, chap. xxxix. 

8 Cfr. De Lapsis, §$ 7,20 Epist. lviii, $§ 3, 5, 6, etc. 

4 Cfr. for inst.: Miscellanies, Book vi, chap. viii; Padag., Book i, chap. xi. 

5 Exhortation to the Heathen, chap. ix. 

5 Miscellanies, Book ii, chap. xxiii. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 487 


the characteristic feature of false prophets.' Yet this same 
divine influence made “almost the whole of Scripture speak 
to us in an oracular language,”* the enigmatic sense of 
which should be investigated with humility, patience, and 
obedience to the tradition of the Church. Finally, he ap- 
peals to this inner allegorical meaning to vindicate the per- 
petual usefuless of many passages of the Holy Scriptures. 

The views of Clement were shared by his greatest pupil, 
Origen; with this difference, however, that the latter pushes 
them farther, with a view to solve the difficulties with 
which his personal study of the sacred text has made him 
acquainted. Like Clement, Origen professes his distinct 
belief in. the inspired character of the whole Bible* and 
describes prophetical inspiration as something very different 
from heathen ecstasis: ‘‘ We can show,” says he, “ from an 
examination of the Sacred Scriptures, that the Jewish proph- 
ets, who were enlightened as far as necessary for their 
prophetic work by the Spirit of God, were the first to enjoy 
the benefit of the inspiration; and by the contact—if I may 
so say,—of the Holy Spirit, they gained a keener and a 
clearer intuition of spiritual truth. . . . If, then, the Pythian 
priestess is beside herself when she prophesies, what spirit 
must that be that clouds and confuses her mind and other 
natural powers, unless it be akin to those demons which 
many Christians are wont to drive out?”* Like his 
teacher, he prizes equally all “the words of God,” and 
admits “that we cannot say of the writings of the Holy 
Spirit that anything in them is otiose or superfluous, even 
if they seem to some obscure.” * He declares also with 
Clement of Alexandria, that there is “no jot or tittle in the 

1 Miscell., Book i, chap. xvii. 

2 Miscell., Book v, chap. vi. 

3 Cfr. De Principiis, Preface, § 4. 


# Against Celsus, Book vii, chap. iv. 
5 Philocalia, chap. x. Cfr. also'Comm. in Rom., Book i, chap. i. 


488 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Scriptures which does not work its own work, when men 
know how to employ it.” ' 

It is precisely at this point that Origen takes leave of his 
great teacher. While Clement is satisfied with showing 
in a practical manner how the typical sense of Holy Writ 
enables the Christian interpreter to vindicate the truth or 
the usefulness of scriptural statements concerning things 
that belong to the past,’ Origen wants to make of allegori- 
cal interpretation a universal principle of solution for difficul- 
ties connected with the Holy Scriptures. For this purpose, 
he constantly emphasizes what seems to him self-contradic- 
tory, unworthy of God, etc., in the sacred writings, and 
infers from it the necessity to have recourse to the allegori- 
cal meaning.’ In particular, he argues vigorously that this 
allegorical sense is the only possible solution of the many 
discrepancies of the Evangelists: “ If one,’ says he, ‘“ were 
to set them all forth, then would he turn dizzy, and either 
desist from trying to establish all the Gospels in truth and 
attach himself to one, . . . or, admitting the four, grant that 
their truth does not lie in their corporeal forms” (thatis, in 
their literal or historical sense).* 

Differently, also, from Clement of Alexandria, Origen as- 
cribed the peculiarities of style in the New Testament writ- 
ings and their linguistic defects to the natural traits of their 
respective authors.” Had he gone no further, he would 
practically have adopted a view which we have already seen 
admitted by St. Irenzeus. But this recognition of a human 
element in the composition of the Apostolic writings soon 
led him to maintain a difference in the degree of inspiration 


1 Philocalia, chap. ii. 

2 CLEMENT: Miscellanies, Book ii, chap. xvi; Book v, chap. vi, etc. 

3 Cfr. Origen; In Exod., Homil. ii; In Josue, Homi) ix, etc., etc. 

4 Comm. in Joan., tom. x. 

5 Cfr. Pref. to Comm. on Romans. In his Homily xiii on St. John, he says: “ Joan- 
nes, ceu sermone rudis, obscure scripsit quod mente conceperat.”’ 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 489 


among the sacred writers. He held that the inspiration of 
the Apostles was not the same as that of the prophets, and 
that in the writings of the former there are many passages 
the tenor of which excludes an immediate influence on the 
part of God.’ Yet he always distinctly affirmed that the 
New Testament writers were shielded from every kind of 
Giron 

Despite the genius and vast learning of Origen, and the 
number of his devoted friends and admirers, his innovations 
were bound to evoke opposition even among some who held 
him most in reverence. This opposition gradually centred 
in the Antiochian school, which strenuously fought against 
the extreme allegorism of the great Alexandrian teacher. 
Yet even that school underwent the influence of his views 
concerning inspiration. As on the one hand, its various 
members looked upon the literal sense of the Holy Scriptures 
as the meaning directly and primarily intended by God, and 
as on the other hand they could not but feel the force of 
the difficulties which Origen had accumulated against it,? they 
were led to admit conclusions from which they would have 
instinctively shrunk otherwise. This accounts to a large ex- 
tent for the fact that the most illustrious writer among them, 
St. John Chrysostom, though speaking of the mouth of the 
prophets as the mouth of God, and of the words of the Apostles 
as the words of the Holy Ghost,* adopts, nevertheless, such 
views as the following: (1) the Gospel narratives disagree in 
details of minor importance, and this disagreement is a proof 
of the reliability of the Evangelists, inasmuch as if they all 
perfectly agreed in everything, adversaries could suspect 


1 Pref. to Comm. on St. John, § 5. 

2 On St. Luke, Homil. xvii; on Jerem., Homil. xxi. 

° Tt is this force of Origen’s difficulties against the historical sense which induced St. 
Ambrose to say: “Ostendit hic locus, que propter fragilitatem humanam scripta sunt, 
non a Deo scripta ” (On St. Luke, Book viii, §§$ 7, 8). 

4 Homil. xix, in Act. Apost.; Homil.i, in Joann.; Homil. in I Tim. v, 23. 


4990 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


them of collusion ; * (2) “occasionally St. Paul speaks in a 
manner which is human, and he does not always, enjoy 
grace, but is allowed to set forth something of his own.” 
Idk dv0pwrivus Ovahgyetat, xal od mavtTayud THES xdpttus anohabet, 
GAG xai map favt0d Te ovyywpsitat elagipet.) ? 

Views similar to those of St. Chrysostom were probably 
held by Theodore of Mopsuestia, who assumed two degrees 
of inspiration, and denied the gift of prophecy to Solomon ; * 
by Junilius Africanus, who closely followed Theodore’s opin- 
ions in biblical matters; and in a somewhat modified form 
by Theodoret, the erudite Bishop of Cyrus, who considered 
it an idle question to ask who was the human author of the 
Psalms,* and deemed it much more important to seek the 
sense of Holy Writ than to cling to its letter.’ 

But beside these and other writers,—such as St. Metho- 
dius, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Epiphanius of Salamis,— 
who belonged to the Antiochian school, several other Fathers 
show clearly the influence)of that great school. Among these 
may be mentioned the Alexandrian scholars, Didymus and 
St. Cyril, and in a particular manner, the illustrious Cap- 
padocian writer, St. Basil of Caesarea. In various places, 
the last-named Father refers indeed the style and words of 
the sacred books to the influence of the Holy Spirit. Yet 
in his Zreatise against Eunomius, he lays it down as a proof 
of the divinity of the Holy Ghost, that He differs from “the 
sacred writers who sometimes speak of themselves (i. e., 

1 Homil. i, in Matt., § 2. He distinctly observes that there is not the least disagree- 
ment among them, when there is question of important points “ in rebus pracipuis, qua 
ad vitam nostram et ad predicationem tuendam pertinent. . . . Quenam autam precipua 
sunt? Deum hominem factum esse, miracula edidisse, crucifixum et sepultum fuisse 
reslrrexisse. 20. 1.0) 

2 Homil. xlix on the Acts of the Apostles, § 1. 

3 It was on that account that Theodore was condemned by the Second General Coun- 
cil of Constantinople (553 a.p.). Cfr. P. Dauscu, Die Schriftinspiration, p. 65, sq. 

4 Preface to Comm. om Psalms: “ Quid enim mea refert, sive hujus (Davidis) omnes 


sive illorum aliqui sint, cum constet divini spiritus afflatu universos esse conscriptos ?” 
5 Quest. xxxix in Genesim. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 491 


their own thought), sometimes express what God inspires 
them with.” * 

Belonging to neither of the two great schools of Alexan- 
dria and Antioch, yet influenced by both, stands St. Jerome, 
the greatest biblical scholar of the Western Church. The 
influence of Origen and his school may be seen from the 
manner in which Jerome speaks of the words, syllables, and 
other minute details of the sacred text, ‘ Singuli sermones, 
syllabe, apices, puncta in Scripturis Sanctis plena sunt 
sensibus, et spirant czelestia sacramenta,’’ and also from his 
allegorical interpretation of many passages of the Holy Scrip- 
tures.” Greater, however, was the influence which the 
Antiochian school exercised upon the solitary of Bethlehem. 
Thus he declares himself in favor of the historico-gram- 
matical method of interpretation,’ and recognizes openly 
the characteristic literary features and other peculiarities of 
the sacred writers. If he belonged to the Antiochian school 
he would hardly speak more freely of Biblical Inspiration 
than he does in the following passages: “ Multa in Scripturis 
dicuntur, juxta opinionem illius temporis, quo gesta referun- 

1“ Hoc namque vere ostendit Spiritum non esse creaturam, quoniam rationalis omnis 
creatura modo a seipsa loquitur, modo ea que Dei sunt, ut cum dicit Paulus: De virgini- 
bus autem preceptum Domini non habeo; consilium tamen do tanquam misericordiam 
consecutusa JJomino. At iis qui matrimonio juncti sunt precipio ego,non Dominus. . 
Spiritus autem non sic. Nonenim modo sua, modo que Dei sunt, loquitur; id enim 
pertinet ad creaturam ”’ (Adv. Eunomium, Book v, § 3d before the end). 

2 Cfr. for instance, Epist. lii, ad Nepotianum, §§ 2-4. 

8“ Alii syllabas aucupentur et litteras, tu quere sententias. ... Obtrectatores mei 
querant et intelligant non verba in Scriptura consideranda sed sensus” (Epist. lvii, ad 
Pammachium, §§ 6, 10). 

4 Of Tsaias he says: “‘ De Isaia sciendum quod in sermone suo disertus sit: quippe ut 
vir nobilis et urbane eloquentiz, nec habens quidquam in eloquio rusticitatis admistum ” 
(Pref. to Isaias, Migne, vol. xxviii, col. 771). ‘‘ Jeremias propheta .. .sermone quidem 
apud Hebrzos Isaia et Osee et quibusdam aliis prophetis videtur esse rusticior. .. . 
Porro simplicitas eloquii, de loco ei in quo natus est accidit ’? (Pref. to Jeremias, Migne, 
ibid., col. 847). Of 3t. Paul he writes: “ Divinorum sensuum majestatem digno non 
poterat Graci eloquii explicare sermone. Habebat ergo Titum interpretem : sicut, et 
beatus Petrus Marcum, cujus Evangelium, Petro narrante, et illo scribente compositum 


est. Denique et duz epistole feruntur Petri, stylo inter se et charactere discrepant. 
..?’ (Epist. CX X, ad Hedibiam, Migne, vol. xxii, col. 1002). 


492 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


tur, et non juxta quod rei veritas continebat;”' ‘ Reperi 
loca, in quibus scripta sunt que videntur facere quaestionem. 
Ac primo etimabam indissolubilia esse, szcut et multa sunt 


align 


Elsewhere he says: ‘ Quid prodest heerere in littera, 
et vel scriptoris errorem vel annorum seriem calumniari, cum 
manifestissime scribatur: littera occidit, spiritus autem 
vivificat?”’® In another passage,+ he seems to admit with 
St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom, that St. Paul was allowed 
to give vent to a human feeling. Finally, in his commentary 
on the prophet Micheas (chap. v, verse 2) he relates without 
condemning the view of those who ascribe to failings of the 
memory of the Apostles or Evangelists, the changes even as 
to the sense which are observable between the passage in 
the Old Testament andthe quotation made of it in the New.° 

It was that freedom of St. Jerome in treating biblical 
statements, which led St. Augustine to write to him these 
significant words: “ But I have learned to hold the books 
of the Canonical Scriptures in such reverence and high 
esteem as to firmly believe that no one of their authors has 
fallen into any error.’’* In point of fact, the illustrious 
Bishop of Hippo, in using these words, was but drawing a 
natural inference from his view that the Scriptures are 
“divine,” ‘holy,’ a “chirographum Del,” *venerabilis 
stylus Spiritus Sancti,’ written by the members of Christ 
‘“‘ dictante capite,” “God speaking to them or through them,” 
etc., etc.’ In these, and in many other such statements, 

1 Comm in Jerem. Liber v, cap xxviii, vers. 10, 11. Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xxiv, col. 
855. It will be noticed that St. Jerome directly refers to Azstorical statements in Holy 
Writ. 

2 Epist.to St. Damasus (Epist. xxxvi) § 10, Migne, P. L., vol. xxii, col. 456. 

3 Epist. to Vitalis (Epist. ]xii) § 5, Migne, ibid., col. 676. 

4 Comment. in Galat., lib. iii, cap. v, verse 12 (Migne, vol. xxvi, col. 40s). 

> Comm. in Michzam, Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xxv, col. 1197. 

6 Epist. lxxxii, chap. i, § 3 (Migne, vol. 33, col. 277). Cfr. Epist. lxxv, chap. iii, § 4 
(Migne, ibid., col. 252). 


7 The references to St. Augustine’s work will be foundin Dauscu, Schriftinspiration, 
p. 78. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 493 


the holy Doctor seems to refer so entirely the writing of the 
sacred books to the divine action, that one is surprised 
when one finds him recognizing a large human element in the 
composition of the Holy Scriptures. ‘If any one,” says he, 
‘affirms that the Evangelists ought to have had that power 
imparted to them by the Holy Spirit which would insure 
them against all variations in words, arrangement, or figures 
given, that person fails to perceive that, just in proportion 
as the authority of the Evangelists is made pre-eminent, the 
credit of all other men who offer true statements of events 
ought to have been established on stronger basis by their 
instrumentality. For seeing how different witnesses may 
tell the same story, and deviate from one another in certain 
particulars, without being justly impeached for untruthful- 
ness, they also are emboldened to tell the truth, being 
able to point to precedents set them by the Evangelists.” ’ 
Elsewhere, he admits that the memory of St. Matthew sup- 
plied him wrongly with the name of Jeremias, in quoting a 
passage of Zachary, and explains how his error was allowed 
by the Holy Spirit.” The general “reason which he gives 
for the discrepancies found in Holy Writ, lies in the action 
of the writers, which action he allows to have been influenced 
by the scope and tendency Oftheirewritings. 1) Thus he 
says: ‘Ut quisque meminerat, et ut cuique cordi erat vel 
brevius vel prolixius, eamdem tamen explicare sententiam, ita 
eos explicare manifestum est;’’ * and again in his Comm. 
on St. John,’ he writes: “ Audeo dicere forsitan nec ipse 
Joannes dixit, ut est, sed ut potuit, quia de Deo homo dixit. 
Et quidem inspiratus a Deo, sed tamen homo.” 


1 De Consensu Evangelistarum, Book ii, § 28 (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xxxiv, col. 1091). 
The whole paragraph is most interesting. 

2 De Consensu Evangel., Book iii, chap. vii, pp. 29, 30 (Migne, ibid., cols. 1174, 1175). 
Cfr. also editorial note in Migne, P. L., vol. xxvi, col. 205, footn. c. 

3 P, ScHanz, A Christian Apology, vol. ii, p. 425 (Engl. Transl. 2d edit.). 

# Cfr. Migne, P. L., vol. xxxiv, col. rogo. 

5 In Joannem, Tract. 1, § 1. 


494 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


It is in view of the two sets of passages from St. Augustine 
just referred to, that Prof. Schanz writes these significant 
words: “In his work on the Gospels, he puts forward two 
views of inspiration, so sharply antagonistic, that at first 
flush one suspects a contradiction lurking within. So much 
stress is laid on the divine influence, that human action 
seems almost effaced ; on the other hand, the scope allowed 
to man’s work is so wide, that we find ourselves on the 
borderland of inspiration. But St. Augustine pursues the 
same method both in this question, and in the question of 
grace and free will.” ’ 


3. The Middle Ages. As time went on, the difficul- 
ties raised or emphasized by Origen against the literal sense 
of Holy Writ gradually ceased to engage seriously the at- 
tention of Christian scholars, and the theories which the 
Antiochian or other Fathers had framed to meet them were 
proportionately forgotten. Thus, in the ninth century, we 
find but a single faint echo of them in a discussion between 
Agobard, Bishop of Lyons, and Frédégis, Abbot of Tours, 
concerning the literary imperfections of the sacred writers.’ 
In like manner, in the tenth century, we meet only one ref- 
erence to the ancient difficulties and theories, in the com- 
mentary of the Eastern writer, EKEuthymius Zigabenus, where 
we are reminded that the Evangelists having written long 
after the events, may have forgotten many things, and that 
such failings of memory may account for their discrep- 
ancies.3 

It is not therefore surprising to find that, in the twelfth cen- 
tury, that is in the course of the Middle Ages, the ancient diffi- 
culties connected with the human element in the composition 

1 A Christian Apology, p. 424. The general remarks of Schanz about the patristic 
views of inspiration, in the same volume (p. 427, sq.), are well worth reading. 


2 Cfr. Micne, P. L., vol. civ, col. 159, sqq- 
3 On St. Matt. xii, 8. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION 495 


of the Canonical Books had been forgotten. The Decretum 
Gratiani, completed about the middle of that century, 
quotes only the passages of St. Augustine which contain 
the strongest expression of his belief in- the absolute relia- 
bility of the Scriptures.’ St. Anselm (f 1109), and Peter 
Lombard (f 1164) have no doubt about the full inspiration 
of Holy Writ, and St. Thomas Aquinas (f 1274), though 
recognizing several degrees of prophetical Revelation, and 
distinguishing between the inspiration granted to the 
prophets and that bestowed upon the other sacred writers, 
admits that all the authors of the Canonical Books were 
favored with a divine illumination which preserved them 
from error, without, however, interfering with the normal 
use of their natural powers.’ Similar views, though couched 
in less scientific terms, are found in the writings of St. 
Bonaventura (f 1274), the greatest mystic of the Middle 
Ages. Hecalls Holy Scripture “the Heart,” “the Mouth,” 
‘the longue merce ore s0d; 3 afiirms that ‘we have 
received Holy Writ from the Father of light, through divine 
Revelation, not through human invention,” and maintains 
that all the contents of the sacred books are useful, true, 
and reasonable.* In like manner, Hugo of St. Victor, 
another great mystical writer of that period, regards as not 
belonging to the Holy Scriptures “ille. in quibus veritas 
sine contagione erroris non percipitur,’ for, says he 
“nequaquam iste divinitatis nomine censeri dignz sunt.” 
“Sola autem,” he adds, “illa Scriptura jure divina appella- 
tur que per Spiritum Dei aspirata est, et per eos qui Spiritu 
Dei locuti sunt, administrata.”* It must be said, however, 


1 Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. clxxxvii, cols. 49, 50. 

2 Cfr. for instance, Summa Theolog., 2a 2%, quest. clxxi, art. i, ad 4um; art. v; 
quzst. clxxiv, art.ii, ad 3um; Questiones Disput., de Veritate, quest. xii, art. vii, etc 
(For a full study of St. Thomas’s doctrine, see Dauscn, Schriftinspiration, pp. 93-97.) 

8 Cfr. Dauscn, loc. cit., p. 99. 

4 Micneg, Patr. Lat., vol. clxxv, col. ro. 


496 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


that Hugo of St. Victor seems to have confused this divine 
element in Holy Writ with the supernatural divine guidance 
enjoyed by saintly men here below, and to have admitted 
that the author of Ecclesiastes drew from his own re- 
sources.’ More incorrect still than this opinion of Hugo 
of St. Victor, was that entertained by Abailard, when he 
sfirmed that “the prophets and Apostles had many times 
mistaken their own conceptions for the voice of God, and 
wrongly considered themselves as inspired,” quoting Galat. 
ii, 11, Sqq. in support of his assertion. But the opinions of 
Abailard and Hugo of St. Victor were only their individual 
views, and the bulk of Christian scholars maintained un- 
hesitatingly the divine character and absolute reliability of 
Holy Scripture, in the sense in which they were then 
embodied inthe dogmatic formula: ‘“ Deus est auctor Scrip- 
ture.” * Whatever difficulties might have been suggested 
against these positions by the study of the literal sense, 
either escaped the attention of Catholic interpreters, or 
were easily bridged over by appeals to the typical or allegor- 
ical sense.3 


§ 4. Third Period: Biblical Inspiration Since the Sixteenth 
Century. 


I. Outside the Church. As the Protestant Reforma- 
tion was started on the basis of the supremacy of the 
sacred books, it might have been expected that its first 
leaders would hold the strictest views concerning Biblical 
Inspiration. In point of fact, the foremost among them, 


1 Cfr. A. Micnon, Les Origines de la Scolastique et Hugues de St. Victor, vol. i, 
p. 212; HAGENBACH, Hist. of Christian Doctrines, § 16r. 

2 Cfr. Dauscu, loc. cit., pp. 102-103. 

3 For the views of Jewish Rabbis regarding inspiration during the Middle Ages, see 
L. Wocug, Histoire de la Bible et de l’Exégése Biblique, pp. 208-296; Encyclopedia 
Britannica, art. Inspiration; Dauscu, loc. cit., p, 104, sq., etc. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 497 


Luther, declares that he looks upon the Bible “as if God 
Himself spoke therein,” that it is “a queen, alone worthy 
to issue orders to be obeyed by all,” that “one of its letters 
or titles is worth far more than heaven and earth,” that 
God spoke with an “audible voice” and the Holy Scrip- 
tures transmit and preserve His words, etc. Yet inconsist- 
ently with these statements, he freely charges the sacred 
writers with inaccurate statements, unsound reasonings, the 
use of imperfect materials, and even urges the authority of 
Christ against that of Holy Writ.’ In a word, as is ad- 
mitted by a recent Protestant writer: ‘“ Luther has no fixed 
theory of inspiration; if all his works suppose the inspira- 
tion of the sacred writings, all his conduct shows that he 
make himself the supreme judge of it.” ” 

Zwingli and Calvin maintained as’ firmly as Luther the 
supremacy of the Bible, while also keeping a considerable 
freedom of thought as to its various parts. The former 
spoke of Holy Writ as “‘ pelagus immensum et impermeabile, 
a nullo adhuc pro dignitate emensum,” and yet affirmed that 
the inner word of God in our heart enables us to judge of 
the outward divine word in the Bible, and that this outward 
word is not free from errors in detail, though perfect in 
matters essential.* According to Calvin: ‘God Himself 
speaks in Scriptures, so that the doctrine therein contained 
is heavenly.” * He nevertheless openly acknowledges in- 
accuracies of detail in the biblical narratives, and says that 
“they do not trouble him much.” ® He admits also “a wide 
difference”? as regards the declaration of the power of 


1 For references to the works of Luther cfr. F. LicHTENBERGER, Encyclopédie des 
Sciences Religieuses, vol. xii, art. Théopneustie; Edouard Rasaup, Histoire de la 
Doctrine de |’Inspiration, pp. 34-40. Lapp, The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. ii, 
p. 165, sq. 

2. RABAUD, loc. cit., p. 42. 

3 Cfr. LICHTENBERGER, loc. cit., p. 106. 

4 Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book i, chap. vii, § r. 

2 Comm. on Epist. to the Hebrews, xi, 21. 


32 


4938 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Christ between the fourth Gospel and the Synoptists, 
affirming that the latter have “but a few sparks of that 
great light which shines forth with such brilliancy in St. 
John.” * In like manner, Carlstadt in his Lzbel/us de 
Canonicis Scripturts recognizes the fallibility of the Bible | 
while maintaining the Protestant doctrine of the supremacy 
of Holy Writ, and the same general spirit prevails through 
the works of Melanchthon, Brenz, Bullinger, Bugenhagen, 
etc., and other immediate followers of the early reformers. 
It must be granted that the position thus assumed by the 
founders of Protestantism was rather awkward, for there 
was an almost palpable inconsistency in asserting on the one 
hand that the Bible was the supreme rule of Christian be- 
lief, and on the other hand, that it contained errors. The 
awkwardness was apparently felt very early, for the earlier and 
greater of the Protestant Symbols speak of the inspiration 
of Holy Writ only in cautious and general terms, stating 
simply, that ‘all things necessary to salvation, both as re- 
gards faith and morals, may be derived from the Bible, and 
can be authoritatively derived only from this source.” * But 
this awkwardness soon disappeared. For polemical purposes 
Protestant divines soon felt it necessary to oppose to the 
Catholic doctrine of an infallible Church, the claim of an 
infallible Bible, as a secure basis for their tenets. They, 
therefore, gave up the laxer views of inspiration which had 
been advanced by the early reformers, and were, in fact, 
gradually betrayed “into the farthest extreme of the pre- 
Christian theory”* of the Alexandrian Philo. At first, 
Flacius Ilyricus (¢ 1575), denied that the sacred narratives 


1Cfr. LICHTENBERGER, loc. cit., p. 105. 

2 See in Scuarr, Creeds of Christendom, vol. iii, the Gad/ice Confession, art. 5; the 
Belgic Confession, art. 7; the Scotch Confession, art. 18; the Westminster Confession, 
chap. i, $6; the 7irty-nine Articles of the Church of England, art. 6. 

3]. A. Dorner, A System of Christian Doctrine, vol. i, p. 187 (Engl. Transi., T. T. 
Clark, 1891). 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 499 


contained contradictions of detail. Next, Calovius (7 1688), 
—the author of what is called the Orthodox Protestant theory 
of inspiration,—claimed that inspiration is the form which 
Revelation assumes, and that every statement of Holy Writ 
was divinely suggested and inspired." Quenstedt (f 1688), 
Baier ({ 1694), and Hollaz (f 1713) went farther, and 
affirmed that the writers were dependent upon the Spirit for 
their very words, and that there are no solecisms in the 
Scripture. The Buxtorfs, Gerhard and Heidegger extended 
inspiration to the vowel-points of the Hebrew Text ;* and 
Gisbert Voetius to the very punctuation. Moreover, while 
the idea of inspiration was thus gradually made to reach 
everything in the text, the sacred writers were proportion- 
ately reduced to passive instruments, to whom ‘“ nothing was 
left but mechanical activity in apprehending the words con- 
taining the matter, and in writing. Such overstraining of 
the divinity of the Holy Scriptures had for its obverse the 
denial of the inspiration of the Aersons, of the holy men 
themselves, to whom all productive power of their own was 
refused, and whose own knowledge of the contents they 
wrote down was regarded as a matter of indifference, if not 
as an actual source of danger to the pure divine character 
of the contents.” 3 

Side by side with this, and opposed to it, ran a second cur- 
rent of Protestant thought likewise traceable to views en- 
tertained by the early reformers regarding inspiration. 
Their admission of errors in the sacred books was repeated 
by L. Socinus (f 1562) and Castalio (t 1563). It was also 
adopted by such Arminians as Episcopius (f 1643), Grotius 
(fT 1645), and Clericus (f 1736), and practically indorsed by 
the Pietist, J. Bengel (f 1752) who exhorted Christians to 


1 This theory was embodied in the Consensus Repetitus fidet vere Lutherane. 

2 This view was adopted in the Porsula Consensus Helvetict, the text of which is 
found in HAGENBACH, History of Christian Doctrines, vol. iii, p. 61, sq. (Engl. Transl.). 

3 DorRNeER, loc. cit., p. 187. 


500 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


feed on the bread of life (i.e. on Holy Writ) without bother- 
ing about some extraneous matter which may be mixed with 
the wheat. Meanwhile, ‘Textual Criticism showed _ con- 
clusively that the extreme conservative school was wrong in 
claiming an immediate divine origin for the Hebrew vowel- 
points, and for all the more or less irregular forms found in 
the Greek Text of the New Testament. The reaction thus 
set in against the strict views of inspiration, was powerfully 
helped along by the influence exerted upon the public mind 
by the works of the English deists, as well as by the ra- 
tional methods advocated by Bacon, Descartes, and Wolf, 
and by the teaching of such men as Baumgarten (Tf 1757) 
and Tollner (f 1774), the great forerunners of Rationalism. 
Inspiration was indeed ascribed to Holy Writ by Baumgarten, 
but it was reduced to a minimum, “the Spirit having per- 
mitted each writer to compose according to the peculiar 
powers of his mind, and to arrange facts according to his 
own comprehension of mind.”* Tollner went farther still, 
and admitted that some books were written without inspira- 
tion of any kind, and were only subsequently approved by 
divine sanction. In fact, he rejected altogether the inspired 
character of the historical writings of the Old Testament, 
and of the book of the Acts, and said that the Gospels of St. 
Luke and St. Mark were simply approved by the Apostles.’ 

Thus was the way paved for the publication of the Wo/fen- 
biittel Fragments, in which Reimarus, their author, represents 
the Bibleas abounding in errors as to matters of fact, and in 
statements at variance with human experience, reason and 
morality.2 Thus, also, was the ground prepared for the 
scientific efforts of Semler to put on a solid basis the views 
of Rationalism which had long been everywhere, so to speak, 


1 Hurst, History of Rationalism, p. 112. 

2 Hurst, loc. cit., p. 201, sq. 

3'The Wolfenbiittel Fragments were published by Lessing, only after the death of 
Reimarus. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 501 


in the air; and it must be said, that under his influence, the 
cause of Rationalism seemed practically won in Germany. 
‘Some of his contemporaries who taught in other universities 
seized upon his tenets and began to propagate them vigor- 
ously. ‘They made great capital out of them for themselves. 
Semler invaded and overthrew what was left of popular faith 
in inspiration after the efforts of Wolf, but here he stopped. 
His adherents and imitators commenced with his rejection 
of inspiration, and made it the preparatory step for their 
attempted annihilation of Revelation itself. Soon the theo- 
logical press teemed with blasphemous publications against 
the Scriptures; and men of all the schools of learning gave 
themselves to the work of destruction. Gottingen, Jena, 
Helmstedt, and Frankfort-on-the-Oder were no longer schools 
of prophets, but of Rationalists and Illuminists.” * 

Ever since Semler’s time, the Rationalistic view which 
looks upon the Bible as a book merely human in its origin 
has been widely entertained by German scholars, in spite of 
the Creeds or Confessions of the sects to which they be- 
longed, and the same holds good, though not to the same 
extent, as regards prominent Protestant writers of France, 
Great Britain, and America. 

Thus, side by side with the old Conjfesszona/ theory, or 
Mechanical or Dictation theory of inspiration,” which re- 
gards the sacred writers as hardly more than machines writ- 
ing what was suggested to them by the Holy Spirit in the 
very act of writing, four principal theories, more or less 
Rationalistic in their tenor, are widely accepted in Protestant 
circles. The first, which may be called the theory of Vatura/ 
inspiration, admits that there are errors of detail in the Ca- 
nonical Books, and that strictly speaking, their authors should 


1 Hurst, loc. cit., p. 137. 
2 Among the advocates of this theory may be mentioned Rob. Haidane (ft 1842), 


Gaussen (f 1863), C. Hodge of Princeton (f 1878), etc. 


502 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


not be called inspired, except in the sense in which Milton, 
Shakespeare, Homer, Plato, Socrates, etc., can be looked 
upon as inspired. | Christianity, according to them, is indeed 
a religion, but only ove of the great religions of the world, 
which claim for themselves the authority of supernatural 
Revelation. The best-known partisans of this thorough-going 
Rationalistic view in the nineteenth century are Kuenen in 
Holland, Ewald in Germany, F. W. Newman in England, 
and Theodore Parker in America. 

A second theory, which reminds one of the opinion ad- 
vanced in the Middle Ages by Hugo of St. Victor, though 
it has more of a Rationalistic tinge about it, identifies the 
inspiration of Holy Writ with the illumination common to 
every believer. This is, in substance, the theory indorsed by 
Schleiermacher (f 1834), Neander ({ 1850), Farrar, Maurice, 
and F. W. Robertson. 

The third leading opinion, which bears the name of Partial 
inspiration theory, limits inspiration to certain parts of the 
Bible; either to the doctrine, or to special revelations, or to 
things naturally unknown to the writer, or to the ideas in 
genera]. This view held by Paley (ft 1805), and Horne 
(ft 1862),” was regarded in 1863 by the British Privy Council 
as sufficiently in harmony with the XX XIX Articles of the 
Church of England. Its watchword is “the Bible contains 
the Word of God,” as against the formula “the Bible zs the 
Word of God.” One of its best-known propounders in 
America is George T. Ladd, particularly in his work entitled 
The Doctrine of Sacred Scriptures.’ 

Lastly, the fourth opinion, which has been called the 
Ivlumination theory, maintains that the Bible is not equally 
inspired in all its parts, and that four degrees of divine in- 


1 A View of Evidences of Christianity, Part iii, chap. iii. 

2 Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, vol. i, 
Appendix No. ii. 

3 Vol. i, pp. 454, 460. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 503 


fluence at least should be recognized. These are called 
(1) Inspiration of Direction; (2) Inspiration of Swperin- 
tendency ; (3) Inspiration of “levation ; (4) Inspiration of 
Suggestion, according to the degree of illumination and guid- 
ance bestowed by God upon the sacred writers.’ In the 
lower degrees, those who hold this view think there is ample 
room for imperfection and error. This is apparently the 
position assumed by Dorner (f 1884) in Germany, and by 
Briggs, H. P. Smith, and other scholars recently tried ios 
heresy by American Presbyteries.’ 


2. Within the Catholic Church. While Protestant 
scholars, applying their great principle of Private Judgment, 
and following out the views of the early reformers, were led 
in large numbers to deny to the Bible all divine authority, 
Catholic writers, guided by the voice of tradition, always main- 
tained the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. As already 
stated, the teaching of tradition had been embodied during the 
Middle Ages in the theological formula: ‘‘ Deus est auctor 
Scripture,” and it is this formula that “the Roman 
Church” solemnly made her own in the Council of Flor- 
ence (in 1431), when she declared that “she believes most 
firmly . . . in one and the same God as the author of the 
Old and New Testaments ... because the same_ Holy 
Spirit spoke through the holy men of both Testaments . . .”* 
It is true that in thus solemnly adopting it, the Church did 
not declare in what precise sense she understood it. Yet 
the meaning she then attached to it can hardly appear 
doubtful when we bear in mind that the universal belief at 
the time was in the inerrancy of Holy Writ, and that such 


1 Cfr,. Horne, ibid. 

2 Cfr.R. F. Werpner, Theological Encyclopedia and Methodology, Part i, p.251, sq. 
For an account of Protestant theories regarding inspiration in France, see E. RABAUD, 
Histoire de la Doctrine de 1’ Inspiration, chaps. vi, vii, viii. 

3 Decretum pro Jacobitis, sive Bulla Eugenii IV ‘“‘ Cantate Domino.” Cfr. DEn- 
ZINGER, Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum, n. 600. 


504 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Pontiffs as John XXII and Clement VI had already de 
clared themselves officially in favor of that belief.’ As, 
however, on the one hand, the Council of Florence had nct 
expressly defined the extent of inspiration, and as, on the other 
hand, the decree fro /acobitis, had been apparently framed 
only for the instruction of those to whom it was directed, 
there were Catholic scholars who considered themselves free 
to admit the existence of minor errors in the sacred books, 
as several Fathers had done before. This was the case 
with Erasmus (f 1536), who in his Commentary on St. Mat- 
thew (chap. 11), says in addition to a similar remark of St. 
Jerome: “It may be that the Evangelists did not extract 
their quotations directly from the sacred books, but trusted 
to their memory, and thus fell into error. Christ alone is 
called the Truth; He alone was free from all error.” And 
in his answer to Eck, he writes: “‘ Neque protinus meo judicio 
vacillet, ut tu scribis, totius auctoritas Scripture, sicubi 
memoria lapsus Evangelista, nomen ponat pro nomine: 
puta Zsazam pro Jeremza cum hinc cardo rei non pendeat. 
Ut enim non protinus de tota Petri vita male sentimus, quod 
Augustinus et Ambrosius affirment illum, et post acceptum 
ccelestem Spiritum, alicubi lapsum esse: ita non continuo 
fides abrogatur libro, qui ncevum aliquem habet.. .”* 
This was also the case with Father A. Pighius, who, in his 
Assertio Ecclesiastice Hierarchie, went so far as to say that 
“lapses of memory and false statements may be attributed 
to the Evangelists Matthew and John.” * 


1 One of the questions put to the patriarch of the Armenians by Clement VI, was “ Si 
credidisti et adhuc credis, Novum et Vetus Testamentum in omnibus libris, quos 
Romane Ecclesiz nobis tradidit auctoritas, veritatem indubiam per omnia continere ” 
(Cfr. Dauscn, loc. cit., p. 103). 

2 Cfr. TrocHon, Introduction Générale, p. 67, footn. 12. 

3“ Matthzus et Joannes evangeliste potuerunt labi memoria et mentiri.” 
Eccl. Hier. I, 2 Cologne, 1538.) Likewise Bened. Pereira (Comm. in Rom.) and 
Gordon Huntlaus (Controv. lib. iii, 4) are referred to by Davuscu (loc. cit., p. 175, 
footn. 4), as denying the special inspiration of St. Luke. 


(Assertio. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION, 505 


The Catholic tradition regarding Biblical Inspiration was - 
reaffirmed by the Council of Trent, in its ““ Decree Concerning 
the Canonical Scriptures ”’ in the following terms: “ The 
Synod, following the examples of the orthodox Fathers, re- 
ceives and venerates with an equal feeling of piety and 
reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New 
Testament—seeing that one God is the author of both. . . . 
But if any one receive not as sacred and canonical the 
said books entire with all their Datts... . let himbe 
anathema.’ It will easily be noticed that in-this decree 
the point expressly defined is the sacred and canonical char- 
acter of the books of Holy Writ, without it being said what 
is implied thereby, and that the formula of Florence bearing 
directly on their inspiration, is repeated without further 
explanation concerning the extent of Biblical Inspiration. 
This is why, even after the Council of Trent, numerous 
Catholic writers may be mentioned who, while maintaining 
the doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible, thought it allow- 
able to restrict its extent in various ways. 

It is true that immediately after the Council of Trent, 
theologians and commentators generally—among whom may 
be mentioned Salmeron (f{ 1585)," Maldonatus (¢ 1583),3 
Bannez (f 1604),* Estius (f 1613),° Suarez (fT 1617),° etc.,— 
maintained that the divine influence extended to the style 
and words employed by the sacred writers. But even be- 
fore the end of the sixteenth century, somewhat freer views 
of inspiration began to be entertained by Catholic scholars. 
In 1585, the Jesuits Lessius and Hamelius (du Hamel), 
both professors in Louvain, set forth the three following 





1 Session the Fourth, April 8th, 1546. 

2 Comment. Lib. i, Proleg. 26. 

8 In Evangel.. Preface, chap. ii. 

* See his words quoted in Dauscu, Schriftinspiration, p. 168, footn. 7. 
5 Comm. in divi Pauli Epistol., in II Tim. iii, 16, 

6 De Fide, disput. v. Sect. iii. n. 3. 


506 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


propositions: (1) Ut aliquid sit Scriptura sacra, non est 
necessarium singula ejus verba inspirata esse a Spiritu 
Sancto; (2) Non est necessarium ut singule veritates et 
sententiz sint immediate a Spiritu Sancto ipsi scriptori 
inspirate; (3) Liber aliquis, qualis est fortasse secundus 
Machabzorum, humana industria sine assistentia Spiritus 
Sancti scriptus, si Spiritus Sanctus postea testetur ibi nihil 
esse falsum, efficitur Scriptura sacra. In thus speaking, 
they went against the most common view of their time, and 
therefore naturally drew upon themselves the censure of 
the celebrated University of Louvain. As, however, the 
censure directed against them was not upheld either by the 
University of Paris or by the Roman authorities, the posi- 
tions they had assumed—especially after the third proposi- 
tion had been somewhat modified,'—rapidly gained ground, 
and were accepted not only by the Jesuits Bellarmin 
(f 1621), Mariana (f 1623),° Bonfrére (ft 1642,)° and Cor- 
nelius a Lapide (f 1657,)° but also by such independent 
scholars as Contenson (f 1674),° Rich. Simon (f 1712), 
Ellies Dupin (f 1719), Dom Calmet (f 1757),” and in the 
nineteenth century, by Movers (f 1856), Hanneberg 
(f 1876),° and many others. 

Two things in particular contributed to render these 
views of the Louvain professors acceptable to Catholic 
theologians and commentators, First, they were clearly in 
harmony with the teaching of tradition, inasmuch as they 


1¥For details, cfr. TRocHon, Introduction Générale, pp. 64-67 ; Dauscu, loc. cit., p. 
146, sqq. 

2 De Verbo Déi, lib. i, chap. xv, ad rum. 

3 Tractatus de Vulgata Editione. 

4 Prolegomena, viii, sect. i. 

5 In II Tim. iui, 16. 

6 Cfr. DAuscH, loc. cit., p. 163, footn. 3. 

7 Dauscu, ibid., p. 155, sqq. 

8 Dissertatio de divina Librorum Sacrorum inspiratione ad II Pet. i, 21; Comm. in 
Nov. Test. ad II Tim. iii, 16. 

® Cfr. Dauscu, loc. cit., pp. 157-159. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 507 


left untouched the fact of inspiration, and the inerrancy of. 
Holy Writ; and secondly, in embodying the traditional 
teaching in a novel form, they presented it in terms which 
did away with the obvious difficulties connected with the old 
theory according to which the style and words of the sacred 
writers had been immediately inspired by the Holy Spirit. 
In so far, however, as they offered a new interpretation of 


the’ formula" Deust ést> auctor Scripture,” 


they may be 
considered as the starting-point of other constructions of a 
less guarded character, which were soon put upon the same 
formula. Thus inthe middle of the seventeenth century, 
an English doctor of Sorbonne, Henry Holden (f{ 1665), 
went so far as to maintain the following view: “ Auxilium 
speciale divinitus preestitum auctori cujuslibet scripti, quod 
pro verbo Dez recipit Ecclesia, ad ea solummodo se porrigit, 
que vel sint pure doctrinalia, vel proximum aliquem aut 
necessarium habeant ad doctrinalia respectum. In iis vero 
que non sunt de instituto scriptoris, vel ad alia referuntur, 
eo tantum subsidio. Deum illi adfuisse judicamus, quod 
plissimis ceteris auctoribus commune sit.”’ God is still, 
according to Holden, the author of Holy Writ, though 
He is not the author of all its parts in the same manner: 
in parts containing statements which may be matters of our 
faith, He granted a special help, which by its very nature 
preserved the writer from error; in other parts, the general 
influence which God exercises upon very pious authors, 
was deemed sufficient by Holden to make them “God’s 
Word,” though it did not necessarily imply the inerrancy of 
the writer. This was indeed a bold position to assume; yet 
since Holden distinctly affirmed the de facto inerrancy of the 
sacred writers,” his view though sharply criticised by many, was 
allowed to pass uncensured. The possibility of mistakes in 


1 Divine fidei Analysis, lib. i, cap. v, lect. r. (First edition appeared in 1652, Paris). 
2 Cfr. Dauscu, loc. cit., p. 180, sq. 


508 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


Holy Writ, which the English doctor had admitted with a 
view to answer more easily the difficulties raised against the 
Holy Scriptures, was adopted for the same reason by several 
prominent scholars after him. This was the case with 
Amort ({ 1775),’ Feilmoser (f 1831),” Chrismann (f 1792),° 
and apparently also Archbishop Dixon (f 1866),’ and Fr. 
Matignon.° 

The next step taken by several Catholic writers brought 
them back to the position which Erasmus, Pighius and 
others had assumed before the Council of Trent. In pres- 
ence of the new difficulties, historical, geographical, scientific, 
etc., urged against statements found in the Bible, French- 
men such as the Abbé Le Noir (f 1860), and Frangois 
Lenormant (f 1883); Germans such as Langen, and 
Reusch, etc., were led to deny the infallible character of 
the biblical statements which have not an immediate bearing 
upon faith and morals. However venturesome, these views 
do not seem to have been expressly condemned by the 
Council of the Vatican, any more than those of Erasmus, 
Pighius, ¢éte., -had)-beensbysthe  Councilof il renters. tue 
Vatican decree concerning the inspiration of Holy Writ, 
reads as follows: “Si quis sacrz Scripture libros integros 
cum omnibus suis partibus, prout illos Sancta Tridentina 
Synodus recensuit, pro sacris et canonicis non susceperit, 
aut eos dvinitus inspiratos esse negaverit, A.S.”° This 
Canon repeats and confirms the decision of Trent regarding 
the “sacred and canonical character” of all the books of 
Holy Writ, and adds to it an explicit definition of their dvzne 


1 Demonstratio Critica Religionis Christiane, quast. xix, quoted in Dauscnu, loc. cit., 
Doz, toOuns x, 

2 Einleitung in die Biicher des N.: Bundes. 

8 Regula Fidei Catholica. 

4 General Introduction to the Sacred Scriptures, vol. i, p. 27 (Baltimore, 1853). 

5La Liberté de l’Esprit Humain dans la Foi Catholique (Paris, 1863). 

6 Concil. Vat. Cazones. II. De Revelatione, Can. iv. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 509 


inspiration, against modern Rationalists. But it does not ap-. 
parently condemn views of Catholic scholars as regards the 
extent of divine inspiration. The only pronouncement of the 
Vatican Council in this connection is found in the second 
chapter of the dogmatic Constitution “ Dez /ilius,” which 
precedes the canons of the same Council, and in which it is 
declared that the books of the Old and New Testaments, 
as enumerated by the Council of Trent “are held by the 
Church as sacred and canonical, not because, having been 
carefully composed by mere human industry, they were after- 
wards approved by her authority, nor merely because they 
contain Revelation without any admixture of error, but be- 
cause having been written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, 
they have God for their author, and have been delivered as 
such to the Church herself.” " By this solemn declaration 
and by the addition of the words “eos divinitus inspiratos ” 
to the Tridentine definition already quoted, the Vatican 
Council clearly rejected the opinion of “those who wished 
to derive the canonical character of certain books from the 
approbation of the Holy Spirit or of the Church, or discussed 
the probability of such canonization, e. g., in the second 
book of Machabees; or who considered freedom from error 
alone, without positive action, a sufficient test of canonicity. 
. . But it lay outside the scope of the Council to determine 
how we are to conceive the inspiration in the Apostolic 
authors. Again the Vatican explanation does not determine 
by what way or criterion the Church came to know the 
inspiration of the several books.’’’ 
It is not therefore surprising to find that after, as before, 


1 Here is the Latin Text of this declaration: ‘‘ Eos vero Ecclesia pro sacris et canoni- 
cis habet, non ideo quod sola humana industria concinnati, sua deinde auctoritate sint 
approbati, nec ideo dumtaxat, quod revelationem sine errore contineant, sed propterea 
quod Spiritu Sancto inspirante conscripti, Deum habent auctorem, atque ut tales ipsi 
Ecclesia traditi sunt.” 

2 Scuanz, A Christian Apology, vol. ii, p. 439, sq. 


510 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


the Vatican Council, Catholic scholars deemed themselves free 
to investigate the question as to the extent of Biblical Inspir- 
ation. In fact, as early as 1872, Rohling, in an article in 
Natur und Offenbarung, entitled Die Lnspiration der 
Bibel und thre Bedeutung fiir die freie Forschung, seemed 
to maintain that inspiration should be restricted to matters 
of faith and morals. Again in 1880, Fr. Lenormant, while 
professing ‘to be a thorough Christian,” “ to believe firmly 
in the inspiration of the sacred books and to subscribe with 
absolute submission to the doctrinal decisions of the Church 
in this respect,” declares openly that “he knows that these 
decisions extend inspiration only to that which concerns 
religion, touching faith and practice. . . . In other matters, 
the human character of the writers of the Bible is fully 
evident. Each one of them has put his personal mark 
upon the style of his book. Where the physical sciences 
were concerned, they did not have exceptional light, they 
followed the common, and even the prejudiced, opinions of 
their age. ‘The intention of Holy Scripture,’ says Cardinal 
Baronius, ‘is to teach us how to go to heaven, and not how 
the heavens go, still less how the things of earth go, and 
what vicissitudes follow one another here.’ The Holy 
Spirit has not been concerned either with the revelation of 
scientific truths or with universal history.” ’ 

Far more guarded in its expressions, and less venture- 
some in its positions, was the article* written by the late 
Card. Newman (f 1890), the purpose of which was “ to state 
what we (Catholics) really do hold as regards Holy Scrip- 
ture, and what a Catholic is bound to believe.” According 
to the learned Cardinal, “the Canonical Books cannot be 
regarded as inspired in every respect, unless we are bound 


1 The Beginnings of History according to the Bible and the Traditions of Oriental 
Peoples, Preface, pp. ix, x (Eng. Transl.). The book is on the Jzdex. 
2 This article appeared in The Nineteenth Century, for February, 1884. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION, Sit 


de fide to believe that ‘terra in externum stat,’ and that 
heaven is above us, and that there are no antipodes. And 
it seems unworthy of divine greatness, that the Almighty 
should in His revelation of Himself to us undertake mere 
secular duties, and assume the office of a narrator, as such, 
or an historian, or geographer, except so far as the secular 
matters bear directly upon the revealed truth. The Coun- 
cils of Trent and the Vatican fulfil this anticipation ; they 
tell us distinctly the object and the promise of Scripture 
Inspiration. They specify ‘faith and moral conduct’ as 
the drift of that teaching which has the guarantee of in- 
Spiration.) mee gains De speaks) of athe! solemn? “duty ” 
incumbent upon “ the Catholic scholar'or man of science 

. nevcr to forget that what he is handling is the Word of 
God, which, by reason of the difficulty of always drawing 
the line between what is human and what is divine, cannot 
be put on the level of other books. .. .”* A little farther, 
he ascribes to the human writers, and not to God, the odzter 
dicta (i. €., unimportant statements, accessory details, etc.), 
as, for instance, what is said of the dog of Tobias,® St. 
Paul’s penula,’ and the salutations at the end of the epistles, 
remarking that neither Fr. Patrizi (f 1881), nor Prof. Lamy 
dares to censure such a view.° 

“This practical exception to the ideal continuity of in- 
spiration,” as Newman calls it, was admitted a few months 
later by an American writer, Fr. Walworth, in his article on 
The Nature and Extent of Inspiration,’ and apparently 
also by Abbé de Broglie (fF 1895),’ and by other Catholic 


” 


scholars. ‘Even in many theological seminaries,” writes 


La Controverse,* “ students were taught as a probable theory 


1 The Nineteenth Century, loc. cit., p. 189. 2 Thid.. p. 192. 
3 Tobias xii, 9. 20 ly Lim. iv, £3: 
5 The Nineteenth Century, loc. cit., p. 198. 6 The Catholic World, Oct., 1884. 


7 Cfr. Dauscu, Schriftinspiration, p. 177. 
8 Mars, 1886. La Controverse is one of the leading Catholic magazines of France. 


5l2 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


that perhaps the historical books (Kings, Paralip., Judges, 
etc.), are inspired and free from error only in their dogmatic 
and imoral parts.” 

Views of a similar kind were expressed by the Canon 
Salvatore di Bartolo, in his work, JL Cyréteri Teologici, 
where, after distinguishing several degrees in Biblical In- 
spiration, he maintains that in passages which do not bear 
directly on faith or morals, or are not essentially connected 
therewith, divine inspiration exists only in an_ inferior 
degree which does not necessarily secure inerrancy.’ This 
was done also by Jules Didiot, one of the best known pro- 
fessors of the Catholic Institute of Lille (France),’ and 
finally, though not so freely, by Mgr. d’Hulst (Ff 1896), the 
eminent Rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris.3 

While these more or less extreme views were extensively 
circulated, almost all the leading theologians (such, for 
instance, as Franzelin (| 1886), Fr. Schmid, Mazella, Ber- 
thier, Pesch, etc.), who treated of Scriptural Inspiration ex 
professo, and “from the safe harbor of dogmatic theology,” * 
endeavored to set forth a satisfactory analysis of the 
formulas used by the Vatican Council: ‘God is the author 
of Scripture,” ‘“ Spiritu Sancto inspirante, conscripti sunt 
libri canonici.” ‘This led them to define inspiration as a 
‘‘imotio Dei in scriptorem sacrum qua Deus est proprie 
auctor libri sacri,’ and to consider it as implying three 
things: (1) a divine impulse prompting the author to write ; 
(2) a special illumination imparted to his mind, and_ sup- 
plying not indeed the words, but the thoughts to be written 
down ; (3) an assistance enabling the writer to set forth, only, 
but yet entirely, the divine message. Others, however, among 

1 Cfr. Neuviéme Critére, Seconde Proposition Négative, p. 251 (French Transl., Paris, 
1889). The work is on the /zdex. 


2 Logique Surnaturelle Subjective, p. 103. 
3 “Ta Question Biblique,” an article published in The Correspondant, January, 1893. 


4“ Vom sichern Port der Dogmatik”’ (Dauscu, loc. cit., p. 178). 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 513 


whom may be mentioned Ch. de Smedt, S. J., and Corluy, S. J., 
though maintaining the complete inerrancy of Holy Writ, 
seemed at times inclined to make concessions to those who 
held a different view. The former quotes approvingly the 
words of St. Jerome we have already cited: “ Multa in 
Scripturis. Sanctis dicuntur juxta opinionem illius temporis 
quo gesta referuntur, et non juxta quod rei veritas con- 
tinebat;’’’ the latter admits that St. Paul, writing under 
inspiration, “ realized only imperfectly the thought of God, 
and hence intended to affirm in some passages of his 
epistles, that he and his readers would be really among the 
living ” at the time of Christ’s second coming.” 

However this may be, it is at this juncture that the Holy 
See judged it advisable to reaffirm the traditional teaching 
of the Church regarding Biblical Inspiration. A few months 
after Mgr. d’Hulst’s article mentioned above, Pope Leo XIII 
issued his Encyclical letter Providentissimus Deus,’ on “ The 
Study of Holy Scripture.” In thisremarkable document, the 
Sovereign Pontiff proclaims with St. Augustine that “the Holy 
Ghost who spoke by the sacred writers, did not intend to teach 
men these things (i. e., the intimate nature of things visible), 
things inno way profitable unto salvation,”* and with the An- 
gelic Doctor, that the sacred writers “ went by what sensibly 
appeared,” ° or put down what God, speaking to men, sig- 
nified in the way men could understand and were accustomed 
to.© Soon after these remarks, the Pope says: “ hec ipsa 
deinde ad cognatas disciplinas, ad historiam presertim, juva- 
bit transferri ; ” after which he proceeds solemnly to declare 


d 


1 Principes de la Critique Historique (Liége, 1883). 

2 Cortvy, att. Fin du monde, in JAuGEy, Diction. Apologétique de la Foi Catho- 
lique, col. 1280. 

3 It is dated November 18th, 1893. 

4 De Genesi ad litteram, Book ii, chap. 9, n. 20. 

6 St. Tuomas, Summa Theolog., pars i, quest. lxx, art. i, ad 3. 

6 Encyclical letter, Official Engl. Transl., pp. 36, 37. 


33 


514 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


that “it is absolutely wrong either to narrow inspiration to 
certain parts of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred 
writer has erred. - For the system of those who, in order to 
rid themselves of these difficulties, do not hesitate to con- 
cede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and 
morals, and nothing beyond, because—as they wrongly 
think—in a question of the truth or falsehood of a passage, 
we should consider not so much what God has said, as the 
reason and purpose for which He said it—this system cannot 
be tolerated. . . . So far is it from being possible that any 
error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only 
excludes every error, but excludes and rejects it as necessarily 
as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can 
be the author of any untruth (quam necessarium est Deum, 
summam Veritatem, nullius omnino erroris auctorem esse).”” 
A little farther still, the Holy Father describes inspiration as 
follows: ‘“ By supernatural power, He (the Holy Ghost) 
so moved and impelled them to write—He was so present to 
them—that the things which He ordered, and those only, 
they, first, rightly understood, them they willed faithfully to 
write down, and finally expressed in apt words and with in- 
fallible truth. Otherwise, it could not be said that He was 
the author of the entire Scripture. . . . Whence it follows 
that those who maintain that something false is found in 
any genuine passage of the sacred writings, either pervert 
the Catholic notion of inspiration, or make God Himself the 
author of such error.”’ ’ 

As might well be expected, this authoritative pronounce- 
ment of the Roman Pontiff made Catholic scholars at large 
more careful and precise in their statements regarding the 
inspiration of the sacred books. They all profess to reject 
error from the inspired writings, and explain in different 


1 Encycl. Letter, ibid., p. 38, sq. 
2 Encycl. Letter, p. 4o, sq. 


HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 515 


ways how scientific and historical passages may be harmo- 
nized either with each other, or with extraneous sources of 
information. Most appeal to St. Jerome’s and St. Thomas’s 
view mentioned in the Lycyclical itself, to show how many 
biblical statements, which, when taken absolutely, might be 
considered as erroneous, are really true, when viewed 
properly—that is, as couched not in scientific, but in popular 
language,’ or as conforming to the opinions of the men for 
the immediate use of whom such inspired statements were 
intended. Others tell us that “when the sacred writers do 
not claim to write history or to write it as demanded by 
modern criticism, they cannot be accused of error if the re- 
presentation does not correspond to the standard of severely 
historical science.” * Others again bid us remember that 
the inspired books embodying traditions with their varying 
accounts of the details of one and the same fact, may be 
conceived as exhibiting a more accurate record of that event 
than others.* But in whatever way they manage to show 
the accuracy of Holy Scripture, they, each and all, profess 
their belief (1) in the inspiration of all the genuine parts 
of the Canonical Books; (2) in the inerrancy of the sacred 
writings ; while almost all admit this notion of inspiration : 
“that God is the chief author (auctor principals), and that 
the writers are the instrumental, though rational, authors 
(auctores instrumentales).” * 


‘ Cfr. for instance, Essai sur la Nature de l’Inspiration des Livres Saints, by E. 
LEVESQUE, p. 13,8qq. (p. 16, sqq. in Engl. Transl.). 

2 P. SCHANZ, quotedin Dublin Review, Oct., 1895, p. 296. 

3“ Quem eventum Matt. viii, 28-34, breviter narratum legimus in illa enumeratione 
miraculorum omnis generis qua Jesu potentiam nullis circumscribi limitibus docetur; 
quare Matthzus solum enarrat id quod ad miraculum spectat. Multo accuratius narrant 
alii duo (Synoptici). .. . Qua omnia (all the differences the author points out) ex 
traditione facillime explicantur; aliter enim ab aliis idem eventus narrari solet ” 
(KNABENBAUER, S. J., Comm. in Evangelium secundum Lucam, p. 289, Paris, 1896). 

4 Scuanz, A Christian Apology, vol. ii, p. 440 (Engl. Transl., New York, 1896). Cfr. 
also the valuable articles of Father LAGRANGE, O. P., on Inspiration, in La Revue 
Biblique Internationale, for 1895, pp. 199-220; pp. 496-518 ; and the able work of 
Abbé Cuauvin, L’ Inspiration des Divines Ecritures, chap. vi. 


SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER XXII. 


THE PROOFS OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 





1. Great importance for Protestants to prove the In- 
spiration of the Bible. 


I The inspiring and elevating character 
; of Holy Writ. 
ARGUMENTS 2: Arguments The superhuman structure and con- 
Pua roRWwie tents of the Bible. 
drawn from 








se Its organic unity joined to the ad- 
mittedly divine origin of many of 
ye RS A es | its component parts. 
3. Appeals to ( of Christ and the Apostles. 
the Authority ( of the Early Church. 
II 1. Grounds common {The authority of Christ and 
d | the Apostles. 
. to them and to 
PROGR EE | me human testimony of the 
SAREE ae Protestants : Early Church. 
Clearioes 2. Special ground: The Divine Authority of the living 


Church. 
516 


GHAPTER ‘XXI. 
THE PROOFS OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 
§ 1. Arguments put forward by Protestants. 


1. Great Importance for Protestants to Prove 
the Inspiration of the Bible. Before proceeding to 
state the proofs upon which Catholics rest their belief in 
the inspired character of the Bible, it may not be amiss to 
explain and examine the position of Protestants in that 
regard. The importance of the question for the latter can- 
not be exaggerated.t Catholics build their faith primarily 
on the teaching of a living Church, whereas Protestants 
rest their whole belief on the written Word of God. ‘They 
have, therefore, to establish by irresistible arguments the 
divine character of the sacred books of the Old and New 
Testaments. A difficult task, at which the ablest minds 
among them have assiduously labored, but with results far 
from satisfactory, as we shall see presently, and as, in fact, 
some of the most enlightened Protestants candidly confess. 
One of them,’ in an inductive essay on Biblical Inspiration, 
writes pertinently: “ The point which strikes us: is that 
Christians are more certain that the Bible is inspired than 
they are of the grounds of their certainty.* . . . The belief 
may be well grounded, and yet no one who holds it may be 


1 Cfr. R. S. Foster, The Supernatural Book, p. 34. 

2 Robert F. Horton, The Inspiration and the Bible, p. 5 (Seventh: edit., London, 
1896). 

3 This is indeed true of Protestants, but not of Catholics. Cfr. W. H. Mattock, 
The Intellectual Future of Catholicity, in The Nineteenth Century, for November, 1899. 


way 


518 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


adequately able to state the grounds, and all the statements 
put together and harmonized may still leave one in some 
astonishment how a conviction so sure and so momentous 
should rest upon so slender and wavering a foundation.” 

In dealing with this topic, the interest of which has been 
revived by recent controversies among Protestants, we shall 
not come back on the altogether subjective criteria of in- 
spiration, which were put forward by Luther, Calvin, and 
other early reformers, and which, as we stated in the His- 
tory of the Canon, soon proved utterly useless in theory 
and in practice, as means to determine which books should 
be regarded as the Word of God. But we shall faithfully 
relate, in the words of their best exponents, the principal 
arguments advanced by contemporary Protestant scholars, 
and simply subjoin a few remarks concerning their respect- 
ive proving force. . 


2. Critical Arguments put forward by Protes- 
tants. Of the many evidences which Protestants have of 
late set forth in favor of Biblical Inspiration, some have 
been called crztica/, because they are based exclusively on 
an examination of the phenomena exhibited by the sacred 
books themselves. 

There is first of all the argument drawn from their zzspz7- 
me and elevating character. 


“The whole drift of the Bible,” writes H. Ward Beecher, “is to 
be a practical book,—a book to teach men the highest way of life ; 
to teach them how to live so as not to be degraded by their 
senses ; so that they shall be able to meet the inequalities of 
life; so that it shall be possible for them to use the world 
without abusing it; to teach them how to live in this world so 
that they shall come to a higher and better one. If there ever 
was a book the aim of whose teaching was that the man of God 


1 Bible Studies, chap. i, The Inspiration of the Bible, p. 14. 


THE PROOFS OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION, + 519 


might be thoroughly furnished unto every good work, that book is 
the Bible.” 


This same characteristic of the sacred writings is no less 
beautifully described, while it is more directly presented as 
an argument to prove their inspiration, by James Paterson 
Smyth, another Protestant scholar, in the following terms: 


“ As my study of the Bible continues, there seems borne in on 
me the conviction that the Book has a mysterious power of rousing 
men to grander, nobler lives ; that the study of it tends powerfully 
to deepen the sense of sin and arouse the desire of righteous- 
ness... .1 Men feel by their own spiritual experience that the 
Book witnesses to itself. ‘The Spirit itself beareth witness with 
their spirit’ that the Book is the Book of God... . Its words 
have moved them deeply; it has helped them to be good; it has 
mastered their wills and gladdened their hearts till the overpower- 
ing conviction has forced itself upon them: Never book spake 
like this Book. 

‘“ Need I point you to the world around, to the miraculous power 
which is exercised by the. Bible, to the evil lives reformed by it, to 
the noble, beautiful lives daily nourished by it? Did you ever 
hear of any other book of history, and poems, and memoirs, and 
letters that had this power to turn men towards nobleness and 
righteousness of life? Did you ever hear a man say, ‘I was an 
outcast, and a reprobate, and a disgrace to all who loved me, till 
I began to read Scott’s poems and Macaulay’s History of Eng- 
land?’ Did you ever hear a man tell of the peace and hope and 
power to conquer evil which he had won by an earnest study of 
the Latin classics ? 

“ Well, you can get a great many to say it of the study of the Bible, 
ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands. You 
can see the amount of happiness and good that has come to the world 
even from the miserably imperfect following of it. You can see 
that the world would be a very paradise of God if it were thor- 
oughly followed. . . . The Book whose tendency is thus to repro- 
duce heaven we may fairly judge to be of heavenly birth, The Book 


1 How God Inspired the Bible, p. 65. 


520 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


whose beautiful ideals no man, no nation, has ever yet attained, is 
surely not of human growth.” } 


To strengthen this argument, Protestant writers bid us 
contemplate the numerous beneficial effects of the Bible 
upon society at large: how it has been a powerful source of 
progress to those nations it has enlightened, guided and 
raised far above the great historical nations of heathendom, 
how much its doctrines and precepts, “resting upon the 
highest sanction and enforced by the strongest motives, have 
contributed to effect the regeneration of man, both individu- 
ally and socially, their power under the agency of the Holy 
Spirit arising from their adaptation to meet our moral and 
spiritual wants ;”* how “ states cannot without Christianity 
accomplish their aim of securing consistently with the general 
welfare, the greatest amount of temporal good to each in- 
dividual”. . . for “ where the religion of Christ does nc* 
prevail, government generally becomes a system of organized 
oppression, .”* finally, “the most polished nations now 
in existence are indebted to it (the Bible) for the preserva- 
tion and diffusion of literature and of the fine arts. It is 
interwoven with the finest productions of the human mind; 
it forms the inspiration of the loftiest poetry, and pervades 
the highest productions of genius.” * 

Such in mere outline is the argument drawn from the in- 
spiring and elevating character of the inspired volume. It 
has been presented in very striking terms by some of the 
most eloquent Catholic and Protestant speakers and writers 
of the nineteenth century, and has no doubt contributed to 
confirm the belief in the divine character of the Bible in 
numerous souls which Rationalistic Criticism had caused to 


1 How God Inspired the Bible, p. 37, sq. 

2 Chas. Eviiort, Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, p. 155. 
3 ELuioTtT, ibid., p. 159. 

# Ecuiort, ibid., p. 160, sq. 


THE PROOFS OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 521 


waver in their faith. Far, therefore, be it from us to treat 
it slightingly, to deny, for instance, the great beneficial 
effects conferred by the written Word of God upon mankind. 
Their importance and number and persistency are simply 
wonderful, and should always move us to return thanks to 
the divine goodness which bestowed such a constant source 
of blessings upon men at large. It seems, however, that in 
their desire to carry conviction into the minds of their hearers 
or readers, some Christian apologists have unwittingly ad- 
vanced to prove the inspiration of the Bible from its ele- 
vating character, much which is due directly not to Holy 
Scripture, but to the preaching of the Christian religion, and 
consequently should be used rather asa proof of the divinity 
of Christianity than of that of its sacred reccrds. This is the 
case, for instance, with the writer just quoted, who speaks 
“ofr they religtonmor sc hrist’“)/as, necessary, ‘to secure wise 
government, material progress, etc.’ 

Nor do we intend to deny the inspiring and ennobling 
influence of Holy Writ upon individual souls by directing 
their attention to God, and the things of God, by supply- 
ing them with salutary warnings against evil, and sublime 
motives for well doing, yet it may be. doubted whether this 
influence is so deep, so universal, so necessary, as to form a 
conclusive proof of the inspired character of a// the Canoni- 
cal Books. Even supposing that such would be the case in 
connection with the books of the New Testament, the Apoc- 
alypse itself included, it seems doubtful whether such a 
view could be held as to all the writings of the old Cove- 
nant, the Canticle of Canticles not excepted. Protestant 
readers of the Bible are oftentimes shocked by the perusal 
of the last-named book, and of not a few passages in other 
books, so that they are far from deriving from them the 


2 Cfr. also R. S, Fostrr, Studies in Theology : The Supernatural Book, p. 29, sqq., 
etc. 


522 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


great spiritual benefit which would lead them to recognize, 
as it were, the breath of the Spirit of God in those writings. 
They continue, it is true, to regard them as inspired, but it 
is 72 spite of such an unfavorable impression, and because of 
a reason very different from the inspiring and elevating 
character of these parts of the Bible: they were formerly 
taught to look upon the whole Bible as the Word of God ; 
they admitted this belief on the authority of their parents 
or teachers, and they now wish to persevere in their belief. 
In point of fact, not so very long ago, Goldwin Smith in 
his able article, entitled Christianity’s Millstone,’ simply 
voiced the sentiment of many no less sceptical but less out- 
spoken Protestant scholars, as to the highly beneficial 
character of the writings of the Old Testament, when he 
advocated the giving up of the Old Testament bodily, as a 
burden too heavy for Christianity to carry. 

A second argument—perhaps less subjective than the one 
just stated—in favor of the inspiration of the Bible, 1s based 
on the superhuman structure and contents of the sacred books. 


“Other historians,” we are told by HORNE,® “differ continually 
from each other; theerrors of the first writers are constantly criti 
cised and corrected by succeeding adventurers, and their mistakes 
are sure to meet with the same treatment from those who come 
after them. Nay, how often does it happen, that contemporary 
writers contradict each other in relating a fact which has -happened 
in their own time, and within the sphere of their own knowledge ? 
But in Scriptures there is no dissent or contradiction. They are 
not a book compiled by a single author, nor by many hands acting 
in confederacy in the same age; for in such case, there would be 
no difficulty in composing a consistent scheme, nor would it be as- 
tonishing to find the several parts in a just and close connection. 
But most of the writers of the Scriptures lived at very different 


1 This article appeared in The North American Review, for December, 1895 (vol. 161, 


PP. 703-719). 
* An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, vol. i, 
p. 167, sq. (New York, Carter and Brothers. 1856). 


THE PROOFS OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 523 


times, and in distant places, through the long space of about sixty 
hundred years; so that there could be no confederacy or collusion, 
and yet their relations agree with, and mutually support each other. 
Not only human historians, but philosophers even of the same school, 
disagree concerning their tenets ; whereas, the two Testaments, like 
the two cherubs (Exod. xxv, 20), look steadfastly towards each 
other, and towards the mercy-seat which they encompass. The holy 
writers, men of different education, faculties and occupations .. . 
notwithstanding the diversity of time and place, the variety of matter, 
.. . yet all concur in carrying on one consistent plan of super- 
natural doctrines; all propose the same invariable truth, flowing 
from the same fountain through different channels. Go, then, to 
the Sacred Scriptures, examine them closely and critically. Can 
you find oze writer controverting the statements or opinions of his 
predecessor ? One historian who disputes any fact which another 
had stated? Is there in the prophets any discrepancy in doctrines, 
precepts or predictions? However they vary in style, or manner 
of illustration, the sentiment and morality are the same. In their 
predictions they exceed one another in particularity and clearness, 
but where is there any contradiction? The same remarks apply 
to the New Testament. . . . Whence, then, arises this harmony of 
Scripture ? Had the writers been under no peculiar influence, they 
would have reasoned and speculated like others, and their writings 
would have opposed each other. But if they were inspired,—if 
they all wrote and spoke under the influence of the same Spirit,— 
then is this harmony accounted for, and it is impossible to account 
for it upon any other principle. Hence we may conclude that all 
Scripture is not only genuine and authentic, but divinely inspired.” 


In connection with this part of the second argument,— 
which has been put forward by several Protestant writers as 
a distinct argument in favor of Biblical Inspiration,—a few 
remarks may be made which go far to show how “this 
harmony and intimate connection subsisting between all the 
parts of Scripture” are not a conclusive proof “ of its au- 
thority and divine original.” ’ It seems, first of all, that the 


1 Horng, ibid., p. 167. Cfr. Chas. Ettiorr, The Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, 
Part ii, chap. ii, p. 126, sqq. 


524 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


independence of the sacred writers of their predecessors or 
contemporaries, which is assumed by the defenders of the 
argument, is at times contrary to fact: the author of Chroni- 
cles can hardly be said to be independent of the books of 
Kings, or the Synoptists of each other (or at least of a 
common source), or the epistle of St. James of that to the 
Romans, etc. Again, the sacred writers do not seem to be 
in so perfect agreement as affirmed in the argument: it has 
never been an easy matter to harmonize the details in the 
Gospel narratives, and very few of the best scholars, ancient 
and modern, would go so far as to say that the harmony be- 
tween the first three Gospels is so striking as to prove their 
divinely inspired character. The same remark applies to 
such passages as Amos v, 25, and Ezechiel xliv, which look 
like direct contradictions, the former; to the Mosaic narrative 
of the sojourn of Israel in Egypt; and the latter, to the 
primitive distinction between priests and Levites stated in 
Exodus and in other parts of Pentateuchal legislation. 
Finally, as admitted by Protestant scholars, the discrepan- 
cies in Biblical History which have been emphasized so 
strongly in the nineteenth century, and so freely considered 
as positive errors by Protestant interpreters,’ count for much 
among the causes of the great disquiet which prevails in 
Protestant communities, regarding the very fact of inspira- 
tion,” so that it is difficult to see how “ the wonderful harmony 
and connection subsisting between all the parts of Scripture, 
are a proof of its divine authority and original.” ° 

The second part of the argument, which is oftener urged 
as a separate argument than the one just set forth—infers 


1 Cfr. Rooks, Lectures on Inspiration, p. 144, who declares that “it is foolish, or, if not 
foolish, disingenuous to deny that such discrepancies (i. e., due to slips of memory, or 
other failings of the sacred writers) do attach to the comparison of passages in Holy 
Writ.” 

2 Jas. P. Smytu, How God Inspired the Bible, p. 4. 

3 HORNE, loc, cit., p. 167. 


THE PROOFS OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 525 


the inspiration of the Bible from the superhuman character 
of its contents. ; 


“We find in it a Jewish national history. Never surely was 
national history so extraordinarily written. Everything is looked 

at in relation to God. Records of other ancient nations tell of 
what this or that great king accomplished ; how the people con- 
quered or were conquered by their enemies. In the Jewish records 
everything is of God. It was God who conquered, God who de- 
livered, God who punished, God who taught. There is no boast- 
ing of the national glory, no flattering of the national vanity ; 
their greatest sins and disgraces and punishments are recorded 
just as fully as their triumphs and their joys. 

“Inthe records of other nations the chief stress is laid on power, 
and prosperity, and comfort, and wealth. In these strange records 
goodness seems the only thing of importance. To do the right 
seems of infinitely more value than to be powerful, or rich, or 
successful in life. Strange, indeed, if such history-writing be-en- 
tirely of the earth! Pity that we have not learned such history- 
writing ourselves ! 

“We hear continually, as it were, a mysterious Voice all through 
the history, threatening, encouraging, pleading with an unwilling 
people. The sole business of prophet, and historian, and legis- 
lator, seems to be to rebuke men for sin, to incite them to holi- 
ness, to point to them the sometimes but dimly seen ideal of 
a noble, beautiful life. A rare phenomenon, indeed, in the 
histories of a nation! 

“Will some one say that this was the natural development of 
the moral tendencies of the Jewish race? The race whose 
prominent tendencies, by their own confession, were idolatry 
and impurity. Remember how unwillingly they received that 
teaching, how rarely they obeyed it, how they killed the prophets 
that declared it to them. ... Nay, surely not from the natural 
- consciousness of Israel could such a Voice have come. 

“Look next at the national poems and hymns of the people, 
the greatest miracle in the whole of the world’s history. ... I 
cannot conceive any honest, earnest unbeliever studying these 
carefully and believing them to be but ordinary human produc- 
tions. When I turn to the secular: history of the world at the 


526 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


time when the Psalms were written, even at the lowest date 
that criticism may assume; when I read of its filthiness and de- 
pravity, of its worship of images and fetishes, of its degraded 
conception of God and duty; and when I place that history be- 
side my Bible open at the book of Psalms, it seems to me that 
the veriest infidel should be overwhelmed by the contrast... . 

“And here is another extraordinary fact. We find as we ex- 
amine this Book a series of teachers, who could not have been 
mere fanatics because of their calm common sense, who could 
not have been impostors because of the nobleness of their teach- 
ing and the danger that it exposed them to, yet claiming to speak 
for Jehovah. They seem to have felt a mysterious Spirit striving 
with their spirit, teaching, enlightening, sometimes almost com- 
pelling them to speak... . 

‘Another peculiarity of the Book. It predicts the future, and 
its predictions are fulfilled. What unaided sage or statesman 
can do that? ‘Who as JI,’ saith God, ‘declareth the thing that 
shall be ?.. 72 


It may be admitted freely that the inference thus drawn 
from the wonderful contents of the sacred books should 
not be lightly set aside. In many ways the Bible appears 
superior to all other human books. Yet it does not seem 
that this superiority is such as to strictly prove its divinely 
inspired character. Its ‘“‘Godward aspect,” as it is called 
by the writer just quoted,” has its counterpart in confessedly 
uninspired books, such as the De Civitate Dei by St. 
Augustine, or Le Duscours sur 0 Histoire Universelle by 
Bossuet, or even in ancient Semitic inscriptions, such as the 
Moabite Stone, where everything also is directly referred to 
Chamos, Moab’s God. An enthusiastic praise of earthly 
grandeur, of worldly splendor and riches and prosperity and 
agerandizement, is found in connection with the glorious 
reigns of David and Solomon,} and if more of the kind is 


1 James Paterson SmMytH, How God Inspired the Bible, p. 26, sqq. 
2) J .PV SMYTH, abide. pros. 
3 Cfr. II Kings viii; III Kings iv, 7, sqq.3 x, 2, sqq., etc. 


THE PROOFS OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 527 


not heard of in the Bible, one may well suppose that it is 
because the biblical record of the various Jewish reigns is 
extremely short, or because these same reigns did not ex- 
hibit anything worthy of like praise. Again, the book of 
Judges seems hardly to exhibit that sublime character which 
is claimed for the historical books of the Bible, in order to 
lead us to admit their inspiration. 

As regards the prophets of the Old Testament appealed 
to in this connection, it should be borne in mind that even 
the granting of the inspired character of their spoken words 
is no conclusive proof of the inspired character of their 
written records. An inspired writing is not simply a faith- 
ful account of utterances formerly delivered. with the help 
of the Holy Spirit, or even of superhuman doctrines ob- 
tained through Revelation; it is a book composed with a_ 
divine commission to write, with a positive influence from 
God upon the writer. As the prophets were inspired 
speakers only in so far as they were divinely commis- 
sioned to speak, and divinely guided in their speech (this 
is granted in the argument above quoted), so must they 
be regarded as inspired writers only in so far as they 
are shown to have enjoyed the same privileges while 
writing. 

Finally, the predictive element found in the Bible, though 
unquestionable, when closely examined is far from furnish- 
ing a clear evidence of Biblical Inspiration. Side by side 
with fulfilled prophecies, there are predictions the accom- 
plishment of which has been, and still is, the matter of very 
serious controversy. And here again it must be remem- 
bered that a book containing true prophecies, that is, con- 
taining true revealed data, is not on that sole account an 
inspired book. 

The last critical argument to be stated and examined is 
chiefly derived from the organic unity prevailing through- 


528 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


out the Bible. It is well and briefly stated by Rooke and 
Westcott in the following terms: 


“ There is in the Bible as a whole,” says the former writer,’ “a 
certain organic unity by which all its parts are bound together 
around the central figure of Christ. Preparation for Christ by 
type, prediction, and providential arrangement manifestly per- 
vades every part of the Old Testament, and the New Testament 
is as manifestly devoted to an explanation of these features of the 
Old Testament. Yet no one can say that the preparation is of 
human design or origin, or that the correspondence between the 
two parts of the Bible and their meeting-point in the historical 
person of Christ is the result of deliberate human skill or artifice. 
It is either a marvellous piece of chance, or else one of the phe- 
nomena in whieh we are compelled to recognize the divine and 
supernatural element. . . . Nor can we pretend to have given even 
a plausible account of Holy Scripture, unless we have found room 
‘in our explanation for a reasonable theory concerning this organic 
unity of the Bible, whence it arises, and what it means.” 


In the same strain, Bishop Westcott writes : * 


“The Bible contains in itself the fullest witness to its divine 
authority. If it appears that a large collection of fragmentary 
records, written, with few exceptions, without any designed con- 
nection, at most distant times, and under the most varied circum- 
stances, yet combine to form a definite whole, broadly separated 


from other books ; if it further appears that these different parts: 


when interpreted historically reveal a gradual progress of social 
spiritual life, uniform at least in its general direction; if, without 
any intentional purpose, they offer not only remarkable coinci- 
dences in minute details of facts, for that is a mere question of 
accurate narration, but also subtle harmonies of complementary 
doctrine; if, in proportion as they are felt to be separate, they 
are felt also to be instinct with a common spirit; then will it 
be readily acknowledged that however they came into being 
first, however they were united afterwards into the sacred vol- 


1 Lectures on Inspiration, p. 143 (Edinburgh, 1893). 
? The Bible in the Church, p. 14. For a more detailed exposition of this argument, 
see A Clerical Symposium on Inspiration, art. ii, by Stanley LEATHES. 


THE PROOFS OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 529 


ume, they are yet legibly stamped with the divine seal as ‘in- 
spired by God’ in a sense in which no other writings are.” 
As a confirmation or continuation of the argument just 
stated, some Protestant writers appeal to the admittedly 
divine origin of many of the component parts of the Bible. 
“The Bible,” they say in substance, “is an organic whole, 
whose character as a whole must be judged by the character 
of its principal parts. Now these principal parts,—the 
sublime moral lessons which are inculcated, the revelations 
and prophecies which are recorded,—are the inspired Word 
of God. Hence the Bible, taken as a whole and with all its 
parts, must be recognized as the inspired Word of: God.” 
The argument drawn from the organic unity of the Bible 
is of all the crztica7 arguments the one most in favor among 
recent Protestant scholars. ‘The reason of this is that the 
existence of a certain unity in the biblical writings can not 
only be inductively established, it can also be set forth in a 
manner calculated to produce a deep impression upon re- 
ligious minds. But however strikingly this organic unity of 
the sacred books may be described, it is beyond question 
that the argument based on it cannot be considered as a 
conclusive proof of Biblical Inspiration. On the one hand, 
it is difficult, not to say impossible, to assign to entire books, 
such as Esther, Ecclesiastes, etc., a real share in “ the 
organic unity by which all the parts of the Bible” are said 
to be “ bound together around the central figure of Christ.” 
On the other hand, it looks strange, indeed, that such books 
as the books of the Machabees, which seem almost indis- 
pensable to the full scheme of Biblical History, and which 
are recognized as belonging to Holy Writ by the Greek and 
Latin churches, should be placed by Protestants outside the 
Canon of the Sacred Scriptures. Apparently, the inspired 
or non-inspired character of the sacred books is independent 
of their amount of share in the organic unity of the Bible; 


34 


539° GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


how then can this organic unity itself be the basis of an 
argument for or agaist their inspiration? Again, we are 
told by a Protestant critic that ‘‘ within the Canon of Sacred 
Scripture, a considerable number of writings stand only on 
the border-line; it is even doubtful whether certain writings 
would have been admitted into the Canon at all if mistaken 
views of their nature and origin had not prevailed when 
they were canonized.’ But even granting that all the sacred 
books admitted by Protestants were rightly inserted into the 
Canon, and can, on that score, form a sound basis for an 
argument drawn from the organic unity of the Bible, a 
further difficulty remains. This argument cannot be shown 
to be absolutely conclusive, 4s long as one can conceive 
that many biblical writings may have been the mere natural 
outcome or development, under peculiar circumstances, of 
conceptions already found in pre-existing Jewish literature, 
and may have been gathered and united to the books 
already collected, precisely because they were their natural 
sequel or complement. 

It is plain, therefore, that the organic unity of the Bible, 
however real we may suppose it to be in most of its parts, is 
no strict proof of the inspired character of all the canonical 
writings. 


3. Protestant Appeals to Authority to prove Bib- 
lical Inspiration. The more one realizes the inadequacy 
of the critical arguments put forward by Protestants in favor 
of Biblical Inspiration,—the principal of which have just 
been stated and examined,—the better able he is to under- 
stand how many of them feel compelled to fall back upon 
what may be called the Catholic ground of avzfhority. 
Those we refer to appeal first to the authority of Christ and 
the Apostles, whose verdict is recorded in the Bible itself, 


1G. T. Lapp, The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture, vol. i, p. 747. 


THE PROOFS OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 531 


and endeavor to show how it is a conclusive proof of the 
inspired character of all the sacred books of the Old and New 
‘Testaments. 


“Tt is undeniable,” we are told,! “that the Saviour and His Apos- 
tles regarded the Old Testament with at least as much reverence 
as did the Jews in their day. . . . Now be it observed, that the 
Jews, in the time of Christ, considered the writings of the Old 
Testament as dzvznely inspired; not merely in respect to their 
doctrines, but their whole matter and substance. Josephus says,’ 
that in his time they were universally believed to have been 
written by men ‘as they learned them of God Himself by inspira- 
tzon, and were justly believed to be ‘dzvzme.’ ... Hence we 
see that Jesus and His Apostles, in coinciding with, and in ap- 
pealing to and promoting the current sentiment of the Jews in 
their days, must be considered as having, really and in the fullest 
sense, espoused and confirmed the doctrine of the devine tnspira- 
tzon of the Old Testament scriptures. 

‘But, unanswerable as is the above attestation, we have a 
direct assertion on the part of St. Paul of still greater import- 
ance. Having reminded Timothy, that from a child, he had 
known ‘the Holy Scriptures... he makes this positive and 
conclusive declaration: ‘4 Scripture ts gtven by tnspiration of 
God. ... Here, then, is the plain testimony of Paul... that 
whatever in his time was included under the name of ‘Scripture ' 
or ‘Holy Scriptures, was of divine inspiration ... to. wit: 
that collection of sacred books to which the Jews notoriously ap- 
plied such names, or, in other words, the books of the Old Testa- 
ment.” 


Again we are reminded that 


“The employment in the New Testament of the general titles 
‘Word of God, ‘Oracles of God, ‘the Scriptures,’ ‘all the 
Scriptures,’ etc., etc., which recognize. the Hebrew canonical books 
as a whole, is of a twofold service in the argument for their in- 
spiration. In the first place, the testimony in such form to the 


1 McILVAINE, The Evidences of Christianity, p. 394, sqq. 
2 Against Apion, Book i, § 7: 


532 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


inspiration of the Old Testament is an addition to the evidence 
derived from what the New Testament writers have said of the 
inspiration of particular passages of it; and in the second place, 
it puts on the same level, as to authority and inspiration, the 
whole of the writings included under the general names applic- 
able to the Old Testament, whether they be quoted in the New 
or not, and whether we know or do not know the authorship of 
the particular books, or indeed know anything at all beyond the 
fact that they truly belong to the collection of writings which 
are included under the various names of ‘the Scripture;’ ‘ the 
Law and the Prophets;’ ‘the Word of God; ‘the Oracles of 
Godda 


Having in this way established to their own satisfaction the . 
inspired character of the books of the Old Testament, Protes- 
tant writers preface their argument in favor of the inspiration 
of those of the New, by the remark that : 


“Tf the writings of the Old Testament were given by inspiration 
of God, much more were the writings of the New so given. ‘If 
the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was 
glorious, .... how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be 
rather glorious?’ (II Cor. iii, 7,8). Though the New Testament 
is more glorious, yet its religion does not differ from that of the 
Old. The prophets of the Old declared beforehand the coming 
salvation; the evangelists of the New announced its accomplish- 
ment. It was not a different revelation that Moses and John were 
commanded to write... . With this view of the connection be- 
tween the Oid Testament and the New, it is impossible to separate 
between the inspiration of the one and that of the other.” ? 


After this prefatory remark, the inspiration of the writings 
of the New Testament is inferred 


‘‘From the evident inspiration of the Apostles in their preaching 


1 Chas. Evuiott, Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, p. 182. For a very detailed ex- 
position of this argument as regards the Old Testament, see Abraham Kuyrer, Ency- 
clopedia of Sacred Theology, pp. 428-460. 

2 Chas. ELxtroTT, loc. cit., p. 182, sq. Cfr. also McILvarng, loc. cit., p. 397, sqv 


THE PROOFS OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATICN. 533 


and other official actions. It was expressly promised by the Lord, 
that when they would stand before enemies, in defence of the 
Gospel, they would speak by zzspzratzon of God (Matt. x, 19, 20; 
Luke xii, 12; xxi, 15). . . . But inspiration was promised by the 
Saviour, in terms of the most comprehensive kind, when He promised 
to send to His disciples a Comforter—the Holy Spirit—who should 
abide with them forever, . . . ‘the Spirit of truth,’ . . . asa substi- 
tute in all respects for the presence, the guidance, the instructions 
of their Lord Himself. . . . The Spirit of truth ‘ sha// teach you all 
things. ‘ Hewilllead youtntoalltruth. ...‘ The Spirit of truth 
shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever [ have satd 
unto you. ... Now all these promises are positive proofs that the 
Apostles were inspired in their ministry, as soon as their fulfilment 
- took place. Thus, when the Day of Pentecost was fully come, and 
the Spirit descended upon them, ‘they were all filled with the 
Holy Ghost,’ and ‘began to speak as the Spirit gave them utter- 
ance. , . . By the same help, Peter discerned the spirit of Ananias 
and Sapphira. Their liewas unto the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as it 
was to one whom the Holy Ghost inspired. . . . Paul, by inspira- 
tion, went forth on his mission from Antioch to the lesser Asia. 
. . . When the Apostles, and elders, and brethren were assembled 
in council. ... they consulted and determined as they were 
guided by inspiration of God. ‘/¢ seemeth good to the Holy 
Ghost’ was the solemn sanction annexed to their sentence. They 
claimed to be always received as inspired. Their speech and their 
preaching, they asserted, were ‘in demonstration of the Spirit,’ 
‘not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the 
Holy Ghost teacheth.’ . .. All these statements... abundantly 
confirm the position that the Apostles, in their preaching and other 
official actions, were in the highest sense zzsfzred. 

‘‘ Hence it would seem to be very naturally and reasonably inferred, 
that when they wrofe for the permanent guidance of the churches 
they wereinspired also. Canit be supposed that St. Paul, in preach- 
ing to the Ephesians or Corinthians spoke as he was moved by the 
Holy Ghost, and yet was entirely bereft of that divine aid when 
he sat down to the much more important work of composing 
epistles to those churches? . .. It seems to be a necessary con- 
clusion, from the above premises, that the authors of the New 
Testament were divinely inspired, as well when writing for all 


534 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, 


people and all ages, as when speaking to the congregation of a 
single synagogue.” 4 


For Catholics, as well as for Protestants, the references 
of Christ and the Apostles to the Old Testament generally, 
and to individual books, are a proof of their divine charac- 
ter, and as such are commonly appealed to by Catholic 
theologians. But the proof is incomplete. Even admitting 
that the authority of Christ and His Apostles proves con- 
clusively the inspiration of the entire Old Testament, it is 
difficult to see how their testimony has the same cogency 
regarding the inspired character of all the books of the New 
Testament. None of these was written before Our Lord’s 
ascension, and several of them could not be included within 
the Scriptures of the New Law, whose inspiration is some: 
times said to have been declared by St. Paul writing to 
Timothy: “All Scripture is inspired of God,”’ or by St. 
Peter when speaking of St. Paul’s epistles “in which are 
certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned 
and unstable wrest, as they do also she other scriptures, to 


* In fact, itis with a view to escape 


their own destruction.” 
the difficulty just pointed out that most Protestant writers— 
as is the case with the one whose words are quoted above,— 
instead of appealing to these testimonies of St. Peter and 
St. Paul, have recourse to an @ /ortior¢ argument based on 
Christ’s promise of divine assistance to His messengers in 
the discharge of their Apostolic mission. If we must grant, 
we are told, that in virtue of this promise, the Apostles were 
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit when addressing a 
synagogue by words of mouth soon to perish, with much 
greater reason must we grant that they enjoyed the same 


1 McItvainyg, loc. cit., p. 399, sqq. Seealso Chas. ELtiortT, loc. cit., p. 183, sqq.; 
KuyPeErtT, loc. cit., p. 460, sqq., etc. 

2-7 Tim. it, 06, 

5 II Pet. iii, 16. 


THE PROOFS OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 535 


divine guidance when writing for all peoples and all ages. 
The argument, though ingenious, is not strictly conclusive. 
Even at its best, it could not prove directly the inspiration 
of our second and third Gospels, since St. Mark and St. 
Luke were not Apostles. And if it is said that these Gos- 
pels were approved by the infallible authority, or written 
under the influence of St. Peter and St. Paul, as affirmed 
by tradition,’ the very recourse to an authority distinct from 
that of Christ and His Apostles as recorded in Holy Writ, 
is a proof that the argument is insufficient by itself to 
establish the inspired character of all the books of the New 
Testament. Further, we are not told anywhere that the 
Acts of the Apostles, which are generally regarded as the 
work of St. Luke, ever obtained such Apostolic approval. 
Finally, when one remembers how difficult it is to prove the 
Apostolic authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and of 
some other writings of the New Testament, such as the Gos- 
pel of. St. Matthew, the Gospel of St. John,’ etc., he sees 
clearly that the argument, which, as set forth above, as- 
sumes the Apostolic authorship of all the books of the New 
Testament, does not rest on an absolutely solid foundation. 

In view of the foregoing remarks, it is easy to understand 
how some Protestant writers fall back on the authority of 
the early Church to confirm and complete the preceding 
argument. 

‘“ Whatever truth there may be in regard to the influence which 
Peter and Paul exercised in the composition of them (Mark’s and 
Luke’s Gospels) one thing is firmly established, and must be re- 
ceived as an undoubted fact. They were immediately and uni- 
versally received by the Church as possessing divine authority. 
They were never placed in the same category with the spurious 
documents, which soon made their appearance after them. . 


S Chasm Bcreio tT, loc citsperso: 

2 The questions connected with the Or7g’z and Authorship of the writings of the 
New Testament will be dealt with in the forthcoming S/ecéaZ Introduction to the New 
Testament. 


536 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


The Church must have had satisfactory reasons for putting them 
on a level with the other two Gospels,—reasons which justify 
the same claims to inspiration accorded to the other books of the 
New Testament.’’! 

Other Protestants go even farther. They distinctly admit 
with Bishop Wordsworth, “ that the Sacred Scriptures as a 
whole can be received upon no other authority but that of 
the testimony of the primitive Church.” 

This appeal of Protestants to the authority of the early 
Church adds undoubtedly to the value of an argument 
drawn from the authority of Christ and the Apostles, but 
this additional value is derived from a non-biblical source, 
and indeed from one essentially opposed to the leading 
principle of Protestantism, to wit: the rejection of all 
ecclesiastical tradition. Nor is this all. In denying the 
inspired character of the deutero-canonical books, all such 
Protestants as claim to admit the authority of the primitive 
Church go right against its verdict, for impartial history 
bears witness to the fact that “the Christian theologians of 
this period (that is, of the first three centuries) knew the 
Old Testament only in its Greek form (the Septuagint), and 
consequently made no distinction between what we call 
Canonical Books (Hebrew) and Apocryphal Books (Greek). 
They quote both with the same confidence, with the same 
formulas of honor, and attribute to them an equal authority 


“*, so ithat, in denying athe 


based on an equal inspiration. 
inspiration of the deutero-canonical books, these same 
Protestant scholars reject as unsound the verdict of the 
Church herself, and treat her authority as an insufficient 
proof of Biblical Inspiration. 


1 Chas. EvxiortT, loc. cit., p. 186. Cfr. McILtvarng, loc. cit., p. 403, sqq. 

° Cfr. Inspiration. A Clerical Symposium, p. 191. Cfr. also in Lux Mundi, p. 283, 
the admissions of Canon Gorr. 

* These words of the late Protestant Prof. Reuss, have already been quoted (chap. ii, § 2, 
n. 2) as a concise and accurate statement of the testimony of the first three centuries of the 
history of the Old Testament Canon (Reuss, History of the Canon, p. 93, Engl. Transl.), 





THE PROOFS OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 537 


§ 2. Proofs set forth by Catholics. 


1. Grounds Common to them and to Protest- 
ants. Several of the arguments advanced by Protestants 
in favor of the divine character of the Bible have been used 
with great effect by Catholic apologists in the nineteenth 
century. The elevating character of the Sacred Scriptures, 
their superhuman contents, and their organic unity, are 
grounds common to all believers in Holy Writ, and when 
set forth in a striking manner are very helpful to souls 
struggling against infidelity. Catholic theologians, however, 
while mentioning these as a confirmation of the Christian 
belief in inspiration, prefer to appeal to authority as a 
proof in favor of this doctrine. 

Here again they meet with those Protestants who, as 
stated above, have felt the need to fall back upon the testi- 
mony of Christ and the Apostles, and even upon that of the 
early Church, to obtain solid proofs for the inspired character 
of Holy Writ. The first ground, then, which is common to 
Catholic and to Protestant scholars, is the authority of Christ 
and His Apostles. On both sides they point out how every 
man who recognizes the divine character of Christ and be- 
lieves in His heavenly mission, must regard as inspired all 
the books of the Old Testament, because He either quoted 
them explicitly as the Word of God,’ or referred to them in 
general.terms, such as “the Scripture,” “the Holy Scrip- 
ture,” etc.,” the obvious meaning of which at the time was 
that they had been written under a special divine influence.3 
On both sides, too, they appeal to the testimony of the 
Apostles who spoke of the Old Testament Scriptures in 
exactly the same terms as their divine Master, and un- 

1 Cfr. for instance Matt. xxii, 31; 41, sqq., etc., etc. 
2 Cfr. for inst., John xix, 36; sq. ; Luke xxiv, 44, etc., etc. 


3 For details, cfr. Catholic theologians such as FRANZELIN, PESCH, SCHMID, CHAUVIS, 
etc. 


535 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, 


questionably shared the belief of their Jewish contempo- 
raries in the inspiration of all their contents. As regards 
these books of the New Testament which were written by 
the Apostles, both Catholics and Protestants consider as an 
argument in favor of their inspiration, the promise of special 
divine help made to them by Christ for their ova/ preaching. 
They feel that such a divine guidance should naturally be 
admitted also in connection with what may be called the 
written preaching of the Apostles. In both cases; the posi- 
tive influence on the part of the Holy Ghost seems equally 
necessary for the carrying out of their divine mission, and if 
anything, special divine guidance would appear more needed 
for their writings than for their preaching by word of mouth, 
because they were destined not to perish at once, but rather 
to shape the faith of the Christian Church in all future ages. 
In fact, the manner in which St. Peter, in his Second Epistle, 
speaks of the epistles of St. Paul generally, placing them on 
the same level as the other divine Scriptures,’ seems a power- 
ful confirmation of the view that writings known to have 
been composed by Apostles were at once held as inspired. 
The second ground common to Catholics, and to a certain 
number of Protestant scholars, is the testimony of the early 
Church. Apart from the infallible character of her teach- 
ing, the early Church bears witness to the fact that, when 
the sacred writers had not yet all left this world, or had but 
recently disappeared, her great teachers, such as St. Clement, 
St. Polycarp, St. Justin, St. Irenzeus, etc., had learned to 
regard as divine, and to quote as the words of the Holy Ghost, 
the writings of the Old and New Testaments. It is indeed 
true that in the present day we are not able to describe the 
exact manner in which these great lights of the Church were 
led to put certain books (particularly those of our New 
Testament which are not referable to the Apostles and 


1 JI Pet. iii, 16, sq. 


THE PROOFS OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 539 


which do not seem to have received their distinct approval), : 
on a level with those which Jesus and His Apostles had ex- 
pressly treated as divine. But no one can reasonably doubt 
that they must have had satisfactory reasons for doing so, 
reasons which justify the same claims to inspiration accorded 
to the other sacred writings. Thus, then, the human testi- 
mony of the early Church may be appealed to by Catholics 
and Protestants, in order to complete whatever might be 
missing in the preceding argument to prove that a// the 
books of the Bible should be regarded as inspired. 

It should, however, be borne in mind, as already pointed 
out, that once this testimony of the early Church is regarded 
as valid, the inspiration of the deutero- as well as of the 
proto-canonical books of the Old Testament, should be ad- 
mitted, since it is a historical fact that the early Church 
held these two classes of books as equally sacred and inspired. 


2. Grounds Special to Catholics in Favor of In-: 
Spiration. Over and above the grounds which are com- 
mon to Protestants and Catholics, there is the distinctly 
Catholic argument, which rests the belief in the inspiration 
of the Bible directly on the divine authority of a living 
Church. It is plain that whatever difficulties may be raised 
against the doctrine of Biblical Inspiration, in the name of 
History, of Higher Criticism, of Geology, etc., Catholics will 
ever find a solid ground for their faith on this point, in the 
simple consideration that the inspired character of the 
Bible is certain beyond all doubt, since the Church, speaking 
with divine, and consequently infallible, authority, teaches 
it as a truth revealed by God. This is the ground which 
Catholic theologians and ecclesiastical writers naturally ap- 
peal to after they have established the right of a living 
Church to teach Revelation with divine authority; and it is 
the proof upon which St. Augustine,—and no doubt count- 


540 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


less minds after him,—felt necessary to fall back upon, when 
he said: “I would not believe the Gospel, unless the au- 
thority of the Church moved me thereto.” "Finally, accord- 
ing to many polemical writers among Catholics, it is the only 
adequate proof that can be given of the inspiration of 
Sacred Scripture, because, viewing it as a divine operation, 
not necessarily known even to the mind that is acted upon, 
they hold that the testimony of God Himself is required to 
make men perfectly sure of it, and that this divine testimony 
comes to our knowledge only by the voice of the Church 


| which He has commanded us to:hear.? 


1 Contr. Ep. Fundam., chap. v. 
2 Cfr. WisEMAN, Principal Doctrines and Practices of the Catholic Church, Leet. ii; 
Bp. WEATHERS, in the Clerical Symposium on Inspiration, p. 193, $q. 





SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER XXII. 


NATURE AND EXTENT OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 


II. 
NATURE 


OF 


INSPIRATION : 


III. 
EXTENT 


OF 


INSPIRATION : 


IMPORTANCE AND INTRICACY OF THE QUESTION. 


{ The Bible zs the Word 
of God. - 
The twofold (Divine 
; and Human) Au- 
: thorship. 
1. The common | es an Divine opera- 
| | 
! 





tions in inspiration. 
teaching of the Human co-operation, 


Church: Simple Divine assist: 
ance. 
Simple — subsequent 
Divine approval. 
Yaa tee approba- 


Wallin teens 


Denied: 
tion of the Church. 


Verbal Dictation Theory. 
Verbal Inspiration as recently un- 


derstood. 


2.Questions [ 
freely debated : 1 oats Illumination Theory. 





I. The two tendencies regarding it defined. 


Extension of inspiration 
They to matters other than 
Faith and Morals. 
Exclusion of every posi- 
sence tive and formal Bae 
AO Admission of simply rela- 
tive truth in certain In- 
spired Statements. 


2. The two ten- 
dencies com- 


pared : 
They disagree as to Scientific 
admission of simply | Statements 
Relative Truth as Historical 
regards” - . Matters. 


541 


CHAP THR x colts 


THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 
§ 1. Lmportance and Intricacy of the Question, 


Or the ‘many religious questions which have engaged the 
attention of the learned world during the second part of the 
nineteenth century, very few, if any, have assumed the same 
importance as the question which regards the precise nature 
and extent of Biblical Inspiration. In the eyes of unbe- 
lievers bent on disproving the supernatural origin of Chris- 
tianity, it imported supremely so to restrict the extent and 
lower the nature of Biblical Inspiration as to make it appear 
practically identical with the kind of sacredness which 
Oriental nations have ever claimed for their own religious 
books. On the other hand, it was of still greater import- 
ance to all believers in the divine character of the biblical 
records, not to allow such a desecration of Holy Writ, but 
rather to vindicate against all attacks its true and full in- 
spiration. ‘To most Protestants, in particular, so accus- 
tomed to look upon the whole Bible as absolutely and 
perfectly divine, the least effort to restrict the extent of its 
inspired character appeared as a sacrilegious attempt to do 
away with its inspiration altogether, and consequently to 
destroy the very basis of the Christian religion. As tc 
Catholics, it is true that, in their eyes, the same question 
is not invested with so vital an importance, because their 
faith rests not on the Bible alone, but also on the Church. 


542 


atin’ 


i eS tae 


THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 543 


It is nevertheless true that any opinion concerning the 
nature and extent of Biblical Inspiration that would depart 
widely from the traditional teaching, must cause concern 
to them, and especially to the pastors of the Church, who 
are divinely commissioned to watch over the perfect purity 
of -revealedmdoetnne. In pomt ofsfact, it was this’ that 
prompted Leo XIII, a few years ago, to issue the Encyclical 
Providentissimus Deus on the “Study of Holy Scripture,” 
wherein he sets forth the traditional concept of inspiration, 
and declares that positions recently assumed by some 
Catholic writers regarding the nature and extent of Biblical 
Inspiration “ cannot be tolerated.” 

Equal to the importance of this question is its intricacy. 
In the name of Astronomy, Geology, History, Archzology, 
Philology, Higher Criticism, etc., objections without num- 
ber and of the most perplexing kind have been vigorously 
and persistently urged by specialists, against the traditional 
view of Biblical Inspiration. Nor have these specialists 
always been Rationalists bent on undermining all faith in the 
Holy Scriptures. Some also belonged to the ranks of the 
most earnest defenders of Christian Revelation. Perplexed 
and perhaps shaken in their traditional belief as regards the 
extent of inspiration, they urged such difficulties in order to 
show the necessity of restricting the doctrine of inspiration 
within such limits that it could be most effectively defended 
against those who denied inspiration altogether.” Finally, 
the treatment of this question is all the more difficult, be- 
cause history clearly proves that during the course of Chris- 
tian ages the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers varied 
considerably regarding the extent and even the nature of 
Biblical Inspiration.3 


1 Cfr. I Tim. vi, 20; II Tim. iii, 14; Acts, xx, 27-31; Luke xxii, 32. 
2 Cfr. CHaAuvin, Lecons d’ Introduction Générale, p. 48. 
3 For details, see chap. xx, History of the Doctrine of Biblical Inspiration. 


544 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


On account of the great intricacy of the subject, we shall 
confine ourselves to a brief treatment of the nature and 
extent of inspiration, and to pointing out rather than dis- 
cussing some of the difficult problems connected there- 
with. 


§ 2. Nature of Biblical Lnspiration. 


I. The Common Teaching of the Church. As 
Catholics abide by the traditional teaching of the Church, 
they naturally agree in admitting certain positions and in 
rejecting others, accordingly as they are implied in, or, on the 
contrary, excluded by, the teaching of the Church regarding 
Biblical Inspiration. ‘This agreement does not indeed prove 
that all such positions must be either held or rejected with 
the very same degree of certainty, for they are not equally 
either bound up or inconsistent with the definitions of the 
Church as to this point of Christian belief. But it sets 
forth, both in a positive and in a negative manner, the 
common teaching of the Church regarding the true nature 
of Scriptural Inspiration ; and because of this, the positions 
either affirmed or denied by all Catholic scholars deserve a 
very special notice. 

Starting from the definitions of Trent and of the Vatican 
quoted in a preceding chapter (chap. xx), Catholic the- 
ologians regard as most intimately bound up with the notion 
of inspiration therein declared, that of the divine authorship 
of all the books of the Bible. They likewise maintain that 
because of such divine authorship, the inspired writings 
have God for their prvzzczpa/ author, and consequently do 
not simply contain the Word of God, but ave in a true sense 
the Word of God; for the one truly said to be the author of 
a book is obviously its principal cause, and on that account, 
the words of the book are regarded and cited as his words. 


nial 


eee 


a a ee eee 


THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 545 


By a further, but no less necessary deduction from the same 
definitions, they admit that the human writers of the sacred 
books by means of whom they have been composed, are at 
best, yet truly, co-agents with the Holy Ghost in their com- 
position ; and this, in fact, is the plain meaning of these 
words of the Vatican Council: ‘“Spiritu Sancto inspirati 
conscripti (sunt libri).” ’ 

Having thus recognized God as the principal author of the 
Canonical Books, and the inspired writers as the secondary 
or instrumental causes of the same sacred writings, Catholic 
theologians proceed to describe the manner in which the in- 
fluence of God, on the one hand, and the action of the human 
agents, on the other, combined to produce the Holy Scrip- 
tures. As regards God’s share in this production, they tell 
us that “ Inspiration, in the special and technical sense, in- 
cludes the three following operations of the Holy Ghost upon 
the sacred writers: (1) the impulse to put in writing the 
matter which God wills they should record ; (2) the sugges- 
tion of the matter to be written, whether by revelation of 
truths not previously known, or only by the prompting of 
those things which were within the writers’ knowledge; (3) 
the assistance which excludes liability to error in writing all 
things, whatever may be suggested to them by the Spirit of 
God, to be written.” * This description of the manner in 
which God acts upon the mind and will and attention of the 
sacred writers has a twofold advantage: it fully embodies the 
tradition of Christian ages concerning this divine action, and 
it clearly states in what way God’s design to express in writ- 
ing certain truths by means of human instruments was safely 
carried out. It is not therefore surprising to find that it 
has recently received the solemn approval of the Holy See 


1 Constit. de Fide Catholica (sess. iii), cap. ii, de Revelatione. 
2 Card. MAnninG, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost, p. 161 (3d edit.); cfr. 
also, FRANZELIN, PESCH, 'TANQUEREY, etc., etc. 


35 


546 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


in the following words of the Encyclical Providentissimus 
Deus: ‘‘Nam supernaturali ipse (Deus) virtute ita eos ad 
scribendum excitavit et movit, ita scribentibus astitit, ut ea 
omnia eaque sola que ipse juberet, et recte mente con- 
ciperent, et fideliter conscribere vellent, et apte infallibili 
veritate exprimerent: secus, non ipse esset auctor sacre 
Scriptures universe.” 

As regards man’s share in the production of the sacred 
writings, Catholic scholars bid us to remember that though 
acting as co-agents under God’s special influence, the in- 
spired writers are no mere passive instruments, but bear 
themselves under the divine action as truly intelligent, active, 
and free agents. This they infer particularly from the 
words by which the author of the Second Book of the Ma- 
chabees confesses that in undertaking his work of abridging 
(the five books of Jason of Cyrene) he has taken in hand no 
easy task, yea, rather a business full of watching and sweat 

and has, according to the plan proposed, studied to 
be brief” * .. . ; and also from the statement of St. Luke 
in his Prologue, where he says that he has investigated with 
great care all the matters he is about to write down.” From 
these same passages and numberless others in Holy Writ. 
Catholic theologians conclude likewise that the sacred writers 
may have been unconscious of the fact of their inspiration, 
and that, as they may have committed to writing things 
which they already knew, so they may have also embodied 
in their books pre-existing documents.* 

Side by side with these positions which all Catholic 
scholars maintain as embodying the positive and correct 
notion of inspiration, there are a few opinions which they 
expressly reject as insufficient, and which have been, or are 


1 TI Machab. ii, 27; cfr. also, verse 24. 

2) Sta Lukes sce 

3 Cfr. NewMAN, On the Inspiration of Scripture, in The Nineteenth Century, Feb: 
ruary, 1894, p. 195 ; ViGouROux, Manuel Biblique, vol. i, n. 253. 


THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 547 


still, held by either Catholic or Protestant scholars. Among | 
these we may mention, first, the view of those who affirm 
that the divine assistance, which would simply exclude lia- 
bility to error, is sufficient to constitute the notion of in- 
spiration. Clearly this opinion is opposed to the scriptural 
expressions Ozdrvevotos 3* O20 tod Ilebpatog aylov gepbpevot,* 
the first of which conveys the idea of positive previous 
impulse on the part of God upon the writers; and the 
second describes the same sacred writers as actual instru- 
ments carried along by the Holy Spirit. Further, this notion 
likens the sacred writings to the infallible utterances of 
Popes and Councils, which all grant are not, strictly speak- 
ing, zzspired,; and it is difficult to see how a mere surveil- 
lance or watching over a writer can truly make God the 
author of the book of that human writer. 

A second theory likewise rejected, because inadequate, is 
that of theologians, who, with Lessius, have thought that for 
inspiration it was enough that a book written with ordinary 
care and diligence, but without supernatural divine aid 
should be declared free from error by subsequent direct ap- 
probation from God. On the one hand, such subsequent 
divine approbation cannot be considered as equivalent to a 
divine action which would enable us to speak of God as the 
true author of a work thus exclusively written by man; and 
on the other hand, this notion of inspiration is directly op- 
posed to the doctrine of Pope Leo XIII, in his Encyclical 
quoted above, and to that of the Council of the Vatican 
speaking of the sacred books as written jointly by the action 
of the Holy Ghost and by that of the human writer: “ Spiritu 
Sancto inspirante, conscripti.”’ 

Still more inadmissible is the view according to which the 
subsequent approbation of ¢Ae Church would suffice to make 


1171 Tim. iii, 16. 
2 TI Pet.i, 21; cfr. also, verse 20. 


5458 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


of an ordinary book an inspired writing. The Church has 
indeed the mission to declare with infallible authority 
whether a book has been written under the divine influence 
which is called inspiration; but this does not impart to her 
the power of supplying whatever amouni of divine influence 
might have been missing in the book at the time of its com- 
position. Besides, the Church herself assembled in the 
Vatican has openly disclaimed this power, when she said: 
“that she holds the books of both Testaments as sacred and 
canonical, not because, having been composed by mere human 
industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority 
. . . but, because having been written under the inspira- 
tion of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author.”’ ’ 


2. Questions freely Debated. Beside the positions | 
which all Catholic scholars agree in admitting or in reject- 
ing, there are theories regarding the nature of inspiration, 
which, though correct from the standpoint of Catholic ortho- 
doxy, have not won universal acceptance. In their several 
degrees of probability they have been or are still freely de- 
bated in the Church, and, as such, claim a passing notice. 

The first, which, as we have seen,” has been admitted by 
many Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, looks upon the 
sacred writers as mere amanuenses of the Holy Spirit. In 
thus conceiving of inspiration as a divine dctation, which 
the human authors of the various books simply set down in 
writing, one may feel perfectly sure tat his notion of in- 
spiration includes all the elements required by the Church 
in order that God may be truly said “the author” of the 
sacred writings. He may well doubt, however, if his theory 
of verbal inspiration, as itis called, does not detract too much 
from the share of the human agents in-the composition of 


1 Vatic. ConctL., Constit. Dogmatica, Dei Filius, cap. ii, de Revelatione. 
2 Cfr. chap. xx, On the History of the Doctrine of Inspiration. 


THE NATURE AND EXTENT Of BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 549 


the inspired books, by reducing it to the mere mechanical 
act of writing. On the one hand, most Fathers and ecclesi- 
astical writers have ascribed a greater share than here ad- 
mitted to the human writers of the books of Holy Writ; and, 
on the other, the individual peculiarities of style, diction, 
thought, manner of treatment, and more particularly the 
discrepancies as regards the details recorded, tend to prove 
that the so-called human element of the Sacred Scriptures is 
much greater than this “‘ mechanical theory ” of inspiration 
would have us believe.’ 

The second orthodox theory,—also called a verda/ inspir- 
ation theory,—maintains that though an active and free agent 
in the composition of an inspired book, the sacred writer was 
under the special divine influence which is called inspiration, 
at the very time when he either wrote or dictated to an aman- 
uensis, the words which go to make up his inspired work: 
According to this theory, the human author of a book of 
Holy Writ selects indeed freely and according to his literary 
ability, information, etc., the words which he puts down, but 
his selection and use of them are not withdrawn from the 
influence of the Holy Spirit. This second opinion, which 
makes due allowance for the peculiarities as regards the 
matter and form of the various books, has the further ad- 
vantage to harmonize well (1) with the description of Scrip- 
tural Inspiration quoted above from the Pope’s Encyclical, 
in which Leo XIII implies that the divine assistance guided 
the sacred writers from the beginning to the end of their 
work ; (2) with these expressions of the Council of the 
Vatican: “ Spiritu sancto inspirante conscripiz (sunt libri),” 
which naturally suggest that the selection and use of the 
primitive words of the inspired records, were not made in- 
dependently of, but rather conjointly with, the divine action. 
It is not, therefore, surprising to find that it has been steadily 


1 For further details, cfr. Vigouroux, Manuel Biblique, n, 15, dzs. 


550 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


gaining ground, and that it counts among its advocates such 
Catholic writers as De Schaezler, Fernandez, Le Hirt, ‘Tan- 
querey, Loisy, Lagrange, Lévesque, Chauvin, etc.’ 

The last opinion to be mentioned ascribes still more scope 
to the individual action of the sacred writers in the compo- 
sition of the Holy Scriptures. It maintains that God may 
truly be said “the author ” of an inspired book, even though 
His action, as regards those things which were already within 
the writer’s knowledge, should be limited to an impulse to 
write on a given topic, and toa general indication of the 
things already known, which He wishes should enter into 
the composition of the book. It is thus, we are told, that 
several Papal documents have been framed, the authorship 
of which everybody ascribes to the Sovereign Pontiff who 
promulgated them.* In the abstract, this view, which may be 
called a Limited [/lumination theory, seems sufficient to meet 
the requirements of the definitions of the Church concerning 
inspiration, inasmuch as a book thus composed may strictly 
be called “the Word of God.” It can hardly be. denied, 
however, that when considered in the concrete, a work thus 
written would hardly have been composed under the divine 
influence-as it is described by Catholic theologians at large, 


and by Leo XIII, in the passage of the Encyclical Prove 


dentissimus Deus, quoted above. 


§ 3. “extent of Biblical Inspiration. 
1. The two Tendencies Regarding it Defined. 


However difficult the question as to the nature of inspiration 
may appear, that which regards its extent is still more so. 
On the one hand, the definitions of the Church have a more 
immediate application to the notion of Scriptural Inspiration 


1 Fora skilful exposition and defence of this theory, see particularly CHauvin, L’In- 
spiration des Divines Ecritures, chap. vii. 

2 Cfr. Cortuy, S. J., in JAuGry, Dictionnaire Apologétique dela Foi Catholique, col., 
935: 


OE ET EE Ol CC OE 


THE NATURE ANL EXTENT OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 551 


than to its extent; and, onthe other hand, scholars have, as, 
may be seen in detail in the chapter on the History of the 
Doctrine of Inspiration, framed more disparate theories con- 
cerning the latter question than concerning the former. The 
difficulty of the question as to the extent of inspiration may 
further be realized from the fact that a detailed examination 
of these various theories can hardly be made without pre- 
vious acquaintance with other intricate questions which be- 
long either to Sfecza/7 Introduction, or to scriptural exegesis. 
Leaving, therefore, aside every attempt at an exhaustive 
treatment of this topic, we shall confine our remarks (1) to a 
brief description of the two main tendencies now prevalent 
among Catholic scholars regarding it; and (2) to a short 
comparison between the most important positions indorsed 
by their respective advocates. 

It is beyond doubt that all Catholic writers look upon the 
traditional teaching of the Church regarding the sature of 
inspiration as a valid means to. determine its ex?emt, and it 
is no less certain that were they simply to draw therefrom 
strictly logical consequences, they would naturally be led to 
the conclusion that the sacred boc ks in their primitive form, 
were perfect in every respect. ‘They would naturally main- 
tain that since “ God is their author ” in such a manner that 
they must be regarded as truly ‘“‘ His Word,” everything in 
them—the words no less than the thoughts, the apparently 
unimportant statements, no less than the sentences directly 
connected with faith and morals, etc., etc.,—must bear the 
manifest impress of their divine origin. In reality, there is 
none among them, who, after the example of the Fathers and 
other ancient writers of the Church, does not feel the necessity 
of modifying such a frvori views, so as to bring them into 
harmony with the actual features of the inspired writings. 
All grant, for instance, that the grammatical inaccuracies or 
other defects of style and composition noticeable in the 


552 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


sacred books, should not be reckoned among the objects to 
which divine inspiration is directly extended. So that, ac- 
cording to all Catholic scholars, the traditional teaching of 
the Church, or, more precisely, deductions from this teaching, 
and the features exhibited by the inspired writings as de- 
termined by a scientific investigation of the sacred text, 
should be both combined in an attempt to determine the 
exact extent of the divine influence under which the Canoni- 
cal Books were composed. Now it is precisely in regard to 
the manner in which these two elements should be combined, 
that two general tendencies may be discovered among 
Catholic writers. While most of them seem chiefly inclined, 
not indeed to deny, but to interpret, well-ascertained facts, 
so as to bring them into harmony with the deductions which 
they regard as validly drawn from unquestionable principles ; 
many, on the contrary, think that in connection with some 
particular facts, it would be better to allow greater weight 
to them, and to modify the theoretical deductions on their 


account. 


2. The Two Tendencies Regarding the Extent 
of Inspiration Compared. The divergent tendencies 
just exposed account for the fact that, though agreeing 
upon the main points connected with the extent of Biblical 
Inspiration, Catholic writers are still divided concerning 
some points of great importance. We now proceed briefly 
to set forth, first, the positions upon which they all agree ; 
and, next, those respecting which they remain at variance. 

The first, and perhaps best-grounded, position common 
to all Catholic scholars, is the natural sequel of the tradi- 
tional views regarding the nature of inspiration, which have 
already been exposed. It is to the effect that dene mm- 
spiration must extend to matters other than faith and morats, 
because this is an obvious inference from the dogmatic 


THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 553 


formula: “The sacred books of both Testaments have 
God for their author.” This view, which has also been 
generally inferred from the decree of Trent that “ the sacred 
books w7h all their parts”? must be held as sacred and 
canonical, has the further support of the testimony of Our 
Lord andthe New Testament writers, who regard indiscrimi- 
nately as God’s Word, passages which have a bearing on 
faith and morals, and those that have not. Again, it is 
the only position in harmony with the well-nigh universal 
and constant consent of the Fathers and _ ecclesiastical 
writers ;' and the opposite view has lately been disapproved 
and rejected by the Holy See, in the following terms: ‘“ The 
system of those who, in order to rid themselves of these 
difficulties, do not hesitate to concede that divine inspiration 
regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond 
. this system cannot be tolerated.” * 

As regards those matters not appertaining to faith ard 
morals, which should be considered as inspired, Catholic 
theologians admit, generally, that they include “ omnes 
omnino res et sententias, quz ab auctore scripte sunt.’’3 
The grounds set forth for this view are practically those 
that have just been exposed ; and to them may be added 
the fact, that whatever things or statements may be proved 
to have been added to the primitive text by any one beside 
an inspired writer, are at once considered as merely man’s 
word; while, on the contrary, whatever may be proved to 
have belonged primitively to the text, is treated at once, 
wherever found, as the Word of God. 

The second leading position admitted by all Catholic 
scholars, is that divine inspiration so extends to all the con- 


1 Cfr. Lotsy, La Question Biblique et l’Inspiration des Ecritures. 

2 Encyclical Providentissimus Deus, p. 39 (Official Engl. Transl.). 

3 C. Pescu, S. J., Institutiones Propedeutice ad Sacram Theol., prop. Ix. Cfr. 
TANQUERFY, De Locis Theologicis, n. 55; CHAuvin, L’Inspiration des Divines Ecri- 
tures, Clap, yi, etc. 


554 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


tents of Holy Writ as to exclude from it every positive and 
Jormal error. ‘The chief ground for this position is the 
tradition of the Church, which, as well remarked by Loisy, 
“never looked upon the Bible as a mosaic made up of 
erroneous human statements set side by side with state- 
ments true and divine. Whoever starts from the data 
supplied by tradition must admit that there is no room for 
error in Holy Writ.”' And this is precisely the ground 
taken by Leo XIII in his memorable Encyclical Provident. 
essimus Deus, where, after having stated that “so far is it 
from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspira- 
tion, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with 
error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and neces- 
sarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the Supreme 
Truth, be the author of any error whatever,” the Sovereign 
Pontiff adds: “ This is the ancient and unchanging faith of 
the Church,” quotes as a proof the words of the Council of 
the Vatican, and concludes: “ Hence, because the Holy 
Ghost employed men as His instruments, we cannot, there- 
fore, say that it was these inspired instruments who, per- 
chance, have fallen into error, and not the primary author.” ” 

But while thus excluding every positive and formal error 
from the genuine passages of the sacred writings, Catholic 
scholars do not intend to affirm that divine inspiration makes 
them all to be true in exactly the same manner: “ Vi inspira- 
tionis non omnia eodem modo vera sunt.’?? Most state- 
ments of Holy Writ must, of course, be taken as expressing 
a plain objective fact, and consequently as containing an 
absolute truth. This is clearly the case with such state- 
ments as: God created heaven and earth; Jesus suffered 
and died for our sins, etc. But there are other statements 


a Locacttesnaet: 
2 Encyclical, On the Study of Holy Scripture, pp. 39, 40 (Official Eng. Transl.). 
8 Pgscu, ibid., prop. lx; and also, n. 629. 


THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 555 


in the Bible, such, for instance, as refer to purely scientific 
matters (that the earth is immovable; that the sun rises and 
sets; that the moon is larger in size than the starg, etc.), 
which, on the one hand, cannot be regarded in exactly the 
same light as those referred to above, since they do not 
contain the expression of something absolutely true; and 
which, on the other hand, should not be set down simply as 
erroneous, because they are part and parcel of inspired 
writings, that is of books from which every positive and 
formal errer must be excluded. Whence the third position 
common to all Catholic writers, that in certain biblical 
statements, not absolute, but simply relative truth may be 
admitted. That this third position 1s not an evasion in- 
vented to escape the difficulties recently raised in the name 
of science against the truth of the biblical records, is plain 
from the fact that such an ancient theologian as St. Thomas 
(f 1274) practically held it, when he wrote: ‘ Moyses rudi 
populo loquebatur, quorum imbecillitati condescendens, illa 
solum eis proposuit quz.manifeste sensul apparent.”’ In 
fact, as early as the time of St. Augustine (f 430) it was 
clearly seen that statements referring to purely scientific 
matters should not be taken as expressing absolute truth, 
because, as this holy Doctor says “the Holy Ghost who 
spoke by them (by the inspired writers) did not intend to 
teach men these things which were in no way profitable 
to salvation.” It is not therefore surprising to find that in 
his Encyclical on “ The Study of Holy Scripture,” which em- 
bodies so well the tradition of Catholic ages, Pope Leo XIII 
-draws the following conclusion : “ Hence they (the inspired 
writers) did not seek to penetrate the secrets of nature, but 
rather described and dealt withthings in more or less figur- 
ative language, or in terms which were commonly used at 


1 Summa Theologica, pars. i, quest. Ixx, art. i, ad 3um. 
2 De Genesi ad Litteram, Book ii, chap. ix, n. 20, 


556 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


the time, and which, in many instances, are in daily use at 
this day, even by the most eminent men of science. Ordi- 
nary speech primarily and properly describes what comes 
under the senses; and somewhat in the same way the 
sacred writers—as the Angelic Doctor also reminds us— 
‘went by what sensibly appeared,’ or put down what God, 
speaking to men, signified, in the way men could under- 
stand and were accustomed to.” * 

Thus, then, according to this position of Catholic scholars, 
an erroneous impression might indeed be gathered from 
certain statements of the sacred writers, as for instance, 
from their unscientific descriptions of natural phenomena. 
But the erroneous impression may and should be set aside 
by treating the popular language under their pens, as we 
treat similar language on the lips of even the best-informed 
men of science. It describes external phenomena without 
reference to their true nature, and describes them accurately 
as they appear. In a word, it contains not absolute, but 
only relative, truth. 

It is precisely in connection with the manner and extent 
in which relatively true statements should be admitted in 
Holy Writ, that differences of views arise among Catholic 
writers. While many would restrict such relativeness of truth 
to a comparatively few biblical passages which refer to purely 
scientific matters, others think it should be extended to all 
scientific matters and to many historical statements besides. 

The main argument set forth by the latter class of scholars 
for extending the relativeness of truth to historical state- 
ments, is drawn from the many discrepancies which they meet 
with in the historical books, the numerous inaccuracies as 
regards chronology, geography, etc., which they think are 
found therein. To save the truthful character of the in- 
spired narratives, without going against what appears to 


? Encyclical Providentissimus Deus, p. 36, Sq. 


THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 557 


them the plain meaning of the text, they affirm that here, 
as in connection with purely scientific statements, appeal 
should be made to an accommodation by the sacred writers 
to the manner in which historical matters were dealt with in 
their time. The compiling of traditions or documents, for 
instance, was in vogue in their day, without reference to the 
objective truth of these sources of information; and in 
consequence, we find such traditions or documents with 
their variations, simply embodied in the sacred records. 
Again, as Schanz puts it: “when the sacred writers do not 
claim to write history, or to write it as demanded by modern 
criticism, they cannot be accused of error, if the representa- 
tion does not completely correspond to the standard of 
severely historical science.” ’ 

As a confirmation of their position in regard to purely 
historical matters, the same Catholic scholars remind us 
that no less illustrious a writer than St. Jerome seems to 
have affirmed it when he wrote: “ quasi non multa in 
Scripturis sanctis dicantur juxta opinionem temporis quo 
gesta referuntur, et non juxta quod rei veritas continebat.” ” 
Finally, they tell us that far from having been rejected by 
the Holy See, the view that purely historical statements 
found in Holy Writ may be treated in about the same man- 
ner as some of its scientific statements, has been practically 
endorsed by Leo XIII, in his Encyclical “On the Study of 
Holy Scripture.” For having adopted and approved the 
view that the language of the sacred writers may be taken 
as not conveying the strict scientific truth, the Sovereign 
Pontiff says a little later: “the principles here laid down 


993 


will apply to cognate sciences, and especially to history. 


1Tn the Theol. Quart.-Schrift, for 1895, p. 188. Cfr. also, p. 191, where the same 
writer says: “In Chronicles, many differences of dates and facts could be adduced, 
which are explicable in part from the aim of the book, in great part only from the use of 
different sources.” 

2[n Jeremiam, cap. xxviii, verses 10, 11. 3 Encyclical, p. 38 (Official Eng. Transl.)- 


558 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 


The second main difference between the advocates of the 
two tendencies described above, bears precisely on this: 
that while many Catholic scholars admit the existence of 
relatively true’ scientific statements only, when the sacred 
writers do not make such statements their own, many others, 
on the contrary, affirm their existence, even in cases where 
these purely scientific views are countenanced by the in- 
spired writers. Here again, the latter scholars appeal to 
the manner in which the Bible speaks of such matters, as a 
ground for their position. They tell us that the sacred 
writers, as granted on all hands, were not favored with a 
special revelation concerning the true nature of purely 
scientific facts; that in their language they so clearly share 
the opinions of their time, that did we not know that such 
opinions are not absolutely corresponding to the reality of 
things, we should never suspect that they were not fully en- 
dorsed by them ; that, far from even giving us a single hint 
showing that they hold different positions from those which 
they state, they assume the current notions of their time as 
a basis for their arguments; that, in a word, everything in 
the manner of the inspired writers is so calculated to pro- 
duce the impression that they themselves countenance the 
scientific views which they express, that every attempt at 
showing the reverse must clearly appear to lack a basis of 
fact. Hence, they conclude that as far as the plain meaning 
of the biblical statements is concerned, it bears out their own 
position. 

At the same time, these Catholic writers distinctly maintain 
that such endorsements of views not absolutely true, are not 
positive and formal errors on the part of the sacred writers. 
“We have not the remotest intention of saying,” writes 
Schanz,’’’ “that the sacred writers have erred, or were 
liable to err in things even unimportant and accidental, but 


1 A Christian Apology, vol. ii, p. 434 (Engl. Transl., 1896). 


THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION. 559 


only that in such matters as profane science and _ profane 
history, they leave the responsibility of borrowed statements 
to the source whence they drew them, or that they followed 
a common and well-recognized way of thinking and speaking. 
If any one should here think it is his duty to protest against 
the supposition that God could have been the occasion of 
an erroneous chronology, his contention would only show a 
mistaken notion of inspiration.” Willingly, too, these same 
authors admit with St. Augustine, that “the sacred writers, 
or to speak more accurately, the Holy Ghost who spoke by 
them, did not intend to teach men these things (that is to say, 
the essential nature of the things of the visible universe) 
things in no way profitable unto salvation.” ’ 

In bringing to a close this brief exposition of the leading 
conclusions of contemporary Catholic scholars regarding the 
extent of Biblical Inspiration, we subjoin the three following 
remarks: (1) the points of agreement among Catholic writers 
are both more numerous and more important than the points 
of disagreement; (2) as long as the advocates of either of 
the two tendencies which have been exposed, maintain the 
exclusion of every positive and formal error from genuine 
bibhcal statements, they seem to remain within the lines of 
Catholic orthodoxy; (3) the extending of relativeness of 
truth to all scientific statements and to historical statements 
not having a direct bearing on points of faith and morals, 
is not perhaps necessary either for exegetical scholars to de- 
termine accurately the sense of the sacred records, or for 
apologetical writers to vindicate that exclusion of positive 
and formal error which Catholic tradition has ever main- 
tained regarding all the statements of the Holy Scriptures. 

1 Words of St. Augustine as quoted by Leo XIII in the Encyclical Providentisstmus 
Deus,—In reference to the exact bearing of the same Encyclical see the valuable article 


entitled ‘‘ A Negative View of the Encyclical vrozsaen’ ssimus Deus,’ by Rev. A J 
Maas. S. J., in the Catholic Quarterly Review for :8 5, pp. 1€2-175. 


AD Xk. xs; Le 5 
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I. TABLE SHOWING THE DERIVATION OF THE HEBREW CHAR 
ACTERS FROM THE EGYPTIAN. 
II. MoABITE STONE—circa B.C. 890. 
III. ORIGEN’S HEXAPLA. 
IV. SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH ROLL (NAPLOUS). 
V. HEBREW MS.—oth cent. (? ) 
VI. CopDEX VATICANUS—4th cent. 
VII. CopEx SINAITICUS—4th cent. 
VIII. CopEx ALEXANDRINUS—Sth cent. 
IX. CopEX EPHR&MI—5th cent. 


X._CODEX.BEz7 =— 6th cent: 





XI. CuRSIVE GREEK MS.—a.D. 1022. 
XII. CURETONIAN Syriac MS.—5Sth cent. 
XIII. FEsHItro SyrrAc MS.—a.p. 464. 
XIV. SAHIDIC MS.—5Sth cent. (?) 
XV. CODEX VERCELLENSIS (OLD LATIN )—4th cent. 
XVI. CopEx AMIATINUS ( VULGATE)—circa A.D. 715. 
XVII. WYCLIFFE’s BIBLE—A.D. 1382. 
XVIII. TYyNDALE’Ss NEW TESTAMENT—A.D. 1525. 


XIX. SPECIMENS OF THE ENGLISH [TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE 


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TABLE SHOWING THE DERIVATION OF THE HEBREW CHARACTERS 


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CopEXx AMIATINUS (VULGATE)—CIRC. A.D. 715. 








WYCLIFFE’S BIBLE—A.D. 1382. 





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God in tyme past 
diversly snd many 
wayes, spake vnto the 
fathers by. prophets: 
but in these last dayes 
he hath spoken vnto 
vs by hys sonne, whom 
he hath made heyre of 
all thyngs: by whom 
also he made the 
worlde. Which sonne 
‘beynge the brightnes 
of- his. glory, and. very 
ymage off his sub- 
‘stance, bearynge vppe 
all thyngs with the 
worde of his power, 
hath in his awne per- 
son pourged oure 
synnes, and is sytten 
on the right honde of 
the maiestie an hye, 
and is more excellent 
then the ‘angels in as 
moche as he hath ‘by 
inheritaunce obteyn- 
ed anexcellentername 
then have they, 


For vnto which off, 
the angels sayde he at 
eny tyme: Thou arte 
my sonne,.this daye 
begate I_ the? And 
agayne: I will be his 
father, and he shalbe 
‘my: sonme. And a- 
gayne when he bryng- 
eth in the fyrst be- 
gotten sonne in-the 
worlde, he sayth: And 
all the pngels of god 
shall worshippe hym. 
And vnto the angels 
he sayth: He maketh 
his angels spretes, and 
his ministers flammes 
of fyre. But vnto the 
sonne he sayth: God 
thy seate shal be for 
ever and ever. The 
cepter of thy kyngdom 
‘is a right cepter. Thou 
hast loved rightewes- 
nes and hated ini- 
quitie: Wherfore hath 
goa, which is thy god, 
anoynted the with the 
oyle off gladnes above 
thy felowes, 


“ 


1 Coverdale, 1535, 


God in tyme past 
dyuersly and many 
wayes, spake vnto y® 
fathers by prophetes, 
but in these last dayes 
he hath spoken vnto 
vs by his sonne, whom 
he hath made heyre of 
all thinges, by whom 
also he made the 
worlde. Which (sonne) 
beynge the brightnes 
of his glory,.and the 
very ymage of his sub- 
staunce, bearinge vp 
all thinges with the 
worde of his power, 
hath in his owne per- 
sonne pourged. oure 
synnes, and is set on 
the righte hande of 
the maiestie on hye: 
beynge even as méch 
more excellent then: 
y° angels, as he hath 
optayned a more ex- 
cellent name “then 
they. 


For’ vnto which of 
the angels sayde he at 
eny tyme: Thou art 
my sonne, this -daye 
have I begotten the? 
And agayne: I ,will 
be his father, and 
he shalbe my sonne: 
and agayne, whan he 
bryngeth in the fyrst 
begotten’ sonne in to 
the worlde, he sayeth : 
And all the angels of 
God shal worshippe 
him. And of the an- 
gels he sayeth: He 
maketh his angels. 


spretes, and his myni-- 


sters fiammes of fyre. 
But vnto y* sonne he 
sayeth: God, yi seate 
endureth for ever and 
ever: the cepter of y! 
kyngdom is a right 
cepter. Thou hast 
loved ¢ 
and hated iniquyte: 
wherfore God (which 


is thy- God) hath an- | God 


oynted the with the 
oyle of gladnesse a- 
hove y! felowes, 


righteousnes,: 


SPECIMENS 


Matthew, 1537, 


God‘ in tyme past 
dyuersly and many 
wayes, spake vnto the 
fathers by y* Pro- 
phetes but in these 
last dayes he hath 
spoken ynto vs by 
hys sonne, whom he 
hath ‘made heyre of 
all thinges: by whom 
also he made yé 
worlde. Which sonne 
beynge the brightnes 
of his glory, and very 
ymage of hys sub- 
stance, bearynge’ vp 
all thynges wyth the 
worde of hys ‘power, 
hath in hys awne 
person purged oure 
synnes, and is sytten 
on the righte hande of 
the maiestye on hye, 
and is more excellent 
then the angels, in as 
moche as he hath by 
inherytaunce obteyn- 
ed an excellentername 
then haue they. 

For vnto whych of 
the angels sayde he at 
eny tyme: Thou arte 
my sonne, this daye 
begate I_ the? And 
agayne: I will be his 
father, and he shalbe 
my sonne. And a- 
gayne when he bring- 
eth in the fyrst begot- 
ten soune into the 
worlde, he sayth: And 
all the angeis of God 
shall worshyppe hym. 


| And of the angels he 


sayth: He maketh hys 
angels spretes, and 
hys ministres flammes 
of fyre. But vnto y® 
sonne he sayth: God, 
thy seate shalbe for 
ever and ever. The 
scepter of thy kyng- 
dome is a ryght scep- 
ter. Thou hast loved 
ryghtewesnes and hat- 
ed iniquyte. _Where- 
fore God whych is thy 

od, hath ‘anoynted 
the with the oyle of 
gladnes aboue_ thy 
felowes. 


OF THE ENGLISH | 


Great Bible (Crom- 
well’s), 1539. 


God in tyme past 
diuersly and many 
ways, spake vnto the 
fathers by Prophetes: 
but in these last dayes 
he hath 
vs by ae awne sonne, 
whom he hath made 
heyre of all thinges, 
by whom also he made 
the worlde. Whych 
(sonne) beinge the 
brightnes of hys glory, 


and the very ymage. 


of hys substance rul- 
ynge all thynges wyth 
the worde of hys pow- 


er, hath by hys awne 
‘persun pourged oure 


synnes,and sytteth on 
the righte hande of 
the maiestye on hye: 
beynge so moch more 
excelient then the an- 
gels, as he hath by in- 

erytaunce obteyned 
@ more excellent name 
then they. 


For vnto whych. of 
the angels sayde he at 
eny tyme: Thou art 
my sonne, this daye 
have I begotten the? 
And agayne: I will 
be his father, and he 
shalbe my sonne. And 
agayne,when he bring- 
eth in the fyrst begot- 
ten sonne into the 
worlde, he sayth. And 
let all the angels of 
God worshyppe hym. 
And vnto the angels 
he sayth: He maketh 
hys’ angels spretes, 
and hys ministres a 
flamme of fyre. But 
vnto the sonne he 
sayth: Thy seate (O 
God) shalbe for ever 
andever. The scepter 
of thy kingdome is a 
ryght scepter. Thou 
hast loved ryghtewes- 
nes, and hated ini- 
quyte. Wherfore, God, 
even thy God hath an- 
oynted the with the 
oyle of gladnes aboue 
thy felowes, 


spoken vnito | 


| 








The Gene 
15 


1. At son 
and in divi 
God spake 
time to ou?’ 
the Prophet 

2. In these 
he hathe s: 
us by his So) 
he hathe n 
all things, 
also he : 
worldes, 

3. Who 
brightnes < 
rie, and 
forme of h 
and bear 
things by i 
worde, hat 
self purged 
and sitteth : 
hand of th 
in the high 
4, And is 
much mor 
then the A 
muche as 
obteined a 
lent name 
6. For vn 
the Angels 
anie time, 
my Sonne 
begate I th 
gaine, I wi 
ther, and 
my sonnet 
6. And aga 
bringeth i 
begotten | 
the world 
And let ali 


t of God wo! 


7. And of 
he saith, 
the Spirits 


' gers,and h 


a flame of 
8. But vn? 


| he sath, 


throne és 1 
euer: the 
scepter of 


9. Thou 


righteousr 


ted iniquii 
fore God, 
God, hath 
thee with 
gladnes ak 
lowes. 





Tyndale, 1525, 


God in tyme past 
diversly snd many 
wayes, spake vnto the 
fathers by. prophets : 
but in these last dayes 
he hath spoken vnto 
vs by hys sonne, whom 
he hath made heyre of 
all thyngs: by whom 
also he made the 
worlde. Which sonne 
beynge the brightnes 
of- his. glory, and. very 
ymage off his sub- 
‘stance, bearynge vppe 
all thyngs with the 
worde ot his power, 
hath in his awne per- 
son pourged oure 
synnes, and is sytten 
on the right honde of 
the maiestie an hye, 
and is more excellent 
then the ‘angels in as 
moche as he hath by 
inheritaunce obteyn- 
ed anexcellentername 
then have they, 


For vnto which off 
the angels sayde he at 
eny tyme: Thou arte 
my sonne,.this daye 
begate I the? And 
agayne: I will be his 
father, and he shalbe 
my: sonme. And a- 
gayne when he bryng- 
eth in the fyrst be- 
gotten sonne in the 
worlde, he sayth: And 
all the angels of god 
shall worshippe hym. 
And vnto the angels 
he sayth: He maketh 
his angels spretes, and 
his ministers flammes 
of fyre. But vnto the 
sonne he sayth: God 
thy seate shal be for 
ever and ever. The 
cepter of thy kyngdom 
is aright cepter. Thou 
hast loved rightewes- 
nes and hated ini- 
quitie: Wherfore hath 
god, which is thy god, 
anoynted the with the 
oyle off gladnes above 
thy felowes, 


Coverdale, 1535, 


God in tyme past 
dyuersly and many 
wayes, spake vnto y® 
fathers by prophetes, 
but in these last dayes 
he hath spoken vnto 
vs by his sonne, whom 
he hath made heyre of 
all thinges, by whom 
also he made the 
worlde. Which (sonne) 
beynge the brightnes 
of his glory,.and the 
very ymage of his sub- 
staunce, bearinge vp 
all thinges with the 
worde of his power, 
hath in his owne per- 
sonne pourged oure 
synnes, and is set on 
the righte hande of 
the maiestie on hye: 
beynge even as moch 
more excellent then 
y® angels, as he hath 
optayned a more ex- 
cellent name ‘then 
they. 


For: vnto which of 
the angels sayde he at 
eny tyme: Thon art 
my sonne, this daye 
have I begotten the? 
And agayne: I ,will 
be his father, and 
he shalbe my sonne: 
and agayne, whan he 
bryngeth in the fyrst 
begotten’ sonne in to 
the worlde, he sayeth : 
And all the angels of 
God shal worshippe 
him. And of the an- 
gels he sayeth: He 
maketh his angels 


spretes, and his myni-- 


sters fiammes of fyre. 
But vnto y® sonne he 
sayeth: God, y' seate 
endureth for ever and 
ever: the cepter of y! 
kyngdom is a right 
cepter. Thou hast 
loved 
and hated iniquyte: 


wherfore God (which | 


is thy- God) hath an- 
oynted the with the 
oyle of gladnesse a- 
bove y' felowes, 


righteousnes, 


SPECIMENS OF THE ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE 


Matthew, 1537, 


God' in tyme past 
dyuersly and many 
wayes, spake vnto the 
fathers by y* Pro: 
phetes but in these 
last dayes he hath 
spoken vnto vs by 
hys sonne, whom he 
hath ‘made heyre of 
all thinges: by whom 
also he made yé 
worlde. Which sonne 
beynge the brightnes 
of his glory, and very 
ymage of hys sub- 
stance, bearynge’ vp 
all thynges wyth the 
worde of hys power, 
hath in hys awne 
person purged oure 
synnes, and is sytten 
on the righte hande of 
the maijestye on hye, 
and is more excellent 
then the angels, in as 
moche as he hath by 
inherytaunce obteyn- 
ed an excellenter name 
then haue they. 

For vnto whych of 
the angels sayde he at 
eny tyme: Thou arte 
my sonne, this daye 
begate I the? And 
agayne: I will be his 
father, and he shalbe 
my sonne. And a- 

yne when he bring- 
eth in the fyrst begot- 
ten soune into the 
worlde, he sayth: And 
all the angels of God 
shall worshyppe hym. 
And of the angels he 
sayth: He maketh hys 
angels spretes, and 
hys ministres flammes 
of fyre. But vnto y°® 
sonne he sayth: God, 
thy seate shalbe for 
ever and ever. The 
scepter of thy kyng- 
dome is a ryght scep- 
ter. Thou hast loved 
ryghtewesnes and hat- 
ed iniquyte. .Where- 
fore God whych is thy 
God, hath anoynted 
the with the oyle of 
gladnes aboue thy 
felowes. 





Great Bible (Crom- 
well’s), 1539. 


God in tyme past 
diuersly and many 
ways, spake vnto the 
fathers by Prophetes: 
but in these last dayes 


he hath spoken vnto. 


vs by hys awne sonne, 
whom he hath made 
heyre of all thinges, 
by whom also he made 
the worlde. Whych 
(sonne) beinge the 
brightnes of hys glory, 
and the very ymage 
of hys substaace rul- 
ynge all thynges wyth 
the worde of hys pow- 


er, hath by hys awne 
‘person pourged oure 


synnes,and sytteth on 
the righte hande of 
the maiestye on hye: 
beynge so moch more 
excellent then the an- 
gels, as he hath by in- 
herytaunce obteyned 
amore excellent name 
then they. 


For vnto whych. of 
the angels sayde he at 
eny tyme: Thou art 
may sonne, this daye 
have I begotten the? 
And agayne: I will 
be his father, and he 
shalbe my sonne. And 
agayne,when he bring- 
eth in the fyrst begot- 
ten sonne into the 
worlde, he sayth. And 
let all the angels of 
God worshyppe hym. 
And vnto the angels 
he sayth: He maketh 
hys’ angels _ spretes, 
and hys ministres a 
flamme of fyre. But 
vnto the sonne he 


sayth: Thy seate (O | 


God) shalbe for ever 
andever. The scepter 
of thy kingdome is a 
ryght scepter. Thou 
hast loved ryghtewes- 
nes, and hated ini- 
quyte. Wherfore, God, 
even thy God hath an- 
oynted the with the 
oyle of gladnes above 
thy felowes, 


The Geneva Bibie, 
i5 ‘te 

i. At sondrie times 

| and in divers maners 


God spake in y® olde 
time to our fathers by 


the Prophetes : 


2. In these last dayes 


he hathe spoken vnto 


ust S e.whome 
he hathe mu rv of 
all things, b yme 
als n 18 the 
worides 

: W ho 11 tae 


brightnes of tne gio- 
rie, and th» ingraued 
forme of his persone, 
and bearing vp_all 
things by hs mightie 
worde, hath by him 
self purged dur sinnes, 
and sitteth at the right 
hand of th} maiestie 
in the high st places, 
4, And is made so 
much more excellent 
then the Argels in as 
muche as he hathe 


obtemed a ore excel- 
lent name tien thei, 
6. For vn which of 
the Angels aid he at 


anie time, Thou art 
my Sonne, this day 
begate I thie? and a- 
gaine, I wilbe his Fa- 
ther, and he shalbe 
my sonne? 

‘6. And agaiie when he 
bringeth i) Ads first 
begotten fonne into 
the worldé he saith, 
And let all .he Angels 


‘of God wovhip him. 


7. And of he Angels 
he saith, [¢ maketh 


the Spirits lis messen- | 


' gers, and hs ministers: 


a flame of fre. 

8. But vniiithe Sonne 
he saith, '| God, thy 
throne is {¢ ever and 
euer: the icepter of 
thy kingéme’ is a 
scepter of righteous- 
nes, 

9. Thou Jast loued 


| righteousné ‘and ha- 


ted iniquiti. Where- 
fore God, euen thy 
God, hathe anointed 
thee with /* oyle of 
gladnes abce thy fel- 
lowes, 


BIBLE. 





1568. 


1. God which in tyme 
past, at sundrie tymes, 
and.in diuers maners, 
spake vnto the fathers 
in the prophetes : 

2. Hath in these last- 
dayes, spoken vnto vs. 
in the sonne, whom 
he hath appoynted 
perry of all thynges, 

y whom also he made 
the worldes. 

3. Who beyng the 
bryghtnesse of the glo- 
rie,and the very image 
of his ‘substaunce, vp- 
holdyng all thynges 
with the worde of his 
power, hauing by him- 
selfe pourged our 
Sinnes; hath syt on 
the ryght hande of 
the maiestie on hye: 

4. Beyng so much 
more excellent then 
the Angels, as he hath 
by inheritaunce ob- 
tayned a more excel- 
lent name then they. 

5. For vnto which of 
the Angels sayde he 
at any tyme: Thou art 
my sonne, this day 
haue I begotten thee ? 
6. And agayne, I wyll 
be to hym 2 father, 
and he shalbe to me 
asonne? and agayne, 
when he bryngeth in 
the first begotten 
sonne into the worlde, 
he saith: And let all 
the Angels of God 
worship hym. 

4. And vnto the An- 
gels he sayth: He ma- 
keth his Angels spi- 
rites,and his ministérs 
a tlambe of fyre. 


8. But vnto the sonne |. 


the sayth] Thy seate 
God [shalbe] for 
euer and euer: The 
scepter of thy king- 
dome [is] a scepter of 


ryghteousnesse. 
¥. Thou hast loued 
ryghteousnesse, and 


hated iniquitie: Ther- |. 


fore God,euen thy God, 
hath annoynted thee 
with the oyle of glad- 
nesse, abone thy fe- 
lowes. ! 


‘The Bishops’ Bible,| The Rheims New 


Testament, 1582, 


1 Diversely and many 
Vvaies in.times past 
God: speaking to the 
fathers in the pro- 

2 phets; last of al in 
these daies hath spo- 
ken tovsinhisSonne, 
vvhome he hath ap- 
pointed heire of al, 
by vvhome he’ made 

vvorldes. 

the 
brightnesse of his 
glorie, and the figure 
of his substaunce, 
and carying al things 
by the vvord of his 
povver, making pur- 
gation of sinnes, sit- 


aiso the 


3 VVho being 


teth on the right 


hand of the Maiestie 
in the high places: 


4 being made so much 
better then Angels, 
as he hath inherited 
a® more excellent 
name aboue them,’ 


5 For tovvhich of the 
‘Angels hath he said 


at, any time, Thow 


art my sonne, to day 
haue Lt begotten thee? 


and againe, J vvil be- 


to him a father, and 
he shal be to-me a 
6 sonne. And vvhen 
againe he bringeth 
in the first begotten 
into the vvorid, he 
‘saith, And let al the 
Angels of God zdore 
7 him. And to the An- 
gels truely he saith, 
He that maketh his 
Angels, snirites: 
and his ministers, a 
8 flame of fyre. But 
to the Sonne: Thy 
throne 6 God for 
euer and euer: arod 
of equitie, the rod of 
9 thy kingdom. Thou 
hast _loued iustice, 
and hated iniquitie : 
therfore thee, God, 
thy God hath anoint- 
ed vvith the oile.of 
exultation aboue thy 
Jellovves, 





The Authorised 
Version, 1611. 


1 God who at sundry 
times, and in diuers 
manners, spake in time 

ast vnto the Fathers 

y the Prophets, 

‘2, Hath in these last 
dayes spoken vnto vs 
‘by his Sonne, whom 
he hath appointed 
heire of gll things, by 
whom also he made 
the, worlds, e 

3.*Who being the 
brightnesse of his glo- 
ry, and the expresse 
image of his person, 

and vpholding all 
things by the word of 
his power, when. hee 
had by himselfe purged 
our siInnes, sate down 
on y° right hand of the’ 
.Maiestie on high, 

4 Being madesomuch 
better then the An- 
gels, as hee hath by 
inheritance " obtained 
a moreexcellent Name 
then they. 

- For vnto which of 


‘the Angels said he at 


any time, Thou art my 
sonne, this day haue [ 
begotten thee? And a- 
gain, I will be to him 
a Father, and he shall 
be to me a Sonne. 

6 And again, when he 
bringeth in the first 
begotten into the 
world, hee saith, And 
let all the Angels of 
God worship him. 

7 And of the Angels 
he saith: Who maketh 
his Angels spirits, and 
his ministers a flame 
of fire. 

8 But-vnto the Sonne, 
he saith, hy throne, 

God, is for euer 
and euer: a scepter of 
righteousnesse zs the 
scepter of thy king- 
dome. 

9 Thou hast loued 
righteousnesse, and 
hated iniquitie, there- 
fore God, ewen thy God 
hath anointed " thee 
with the oyle of glad- 
nesse aboue thy fel- 
lowes, 














The Revised Ver- 
sion, 1881. 


1 Gop, having of old 
time spoken unte 
the fathers in the 
prophets by divers 
portions and in di- 

2 vers manners, hath 
at the end of these 
days spoken unto us 
in his Son, whom 
he appointed heir of 
all things, through 
whom also he made 

3 the worlds; who be- 
ing the effulgence of 
his glory, and the 
very image of his 
substance, and up- 
holding all things 
by the word of his 
power, when he had 

made purification of 

sins,sat down on the 
right hand of the 

Majesty on high; 

4 having become by so 
much better than 
theangels,as he hath 
inherited a more ex- 
cellent name than 

5 they. Forunto which 
of the angels said he 
at any time, 7 

«thou art my Son, 

This day haye [ 
begotten thee? 

and again, 

Iwill be to him a 
Father, 

And he shall be ta 
me a Son? 

6 And when he again 
bringeth in the first- 
born into the world, 
he saith, And let all 
the angels of God 
worship him. 

7 And of the angels he 
saith, 

Who maketh his 
angels winds, 

And his ministers 
a flame of fire : 

8 but of the Son he 
saith, 

Thy throné, 6 God, 
is for ever ‘and 
ever; 

And the_sceptre 
of-uprightness is 
the sceptre of 
thy kingdom. 


9 Thou_ hast! loved 


righteousness, - 
and hated ini- 
quity; — 

Theretore God,thy 
God, hath anoin- 
ted thee 

With the oil of 
gladness above 
thy fellows, 


detieisa Nn AP - 


Abaiiard, 443, 496. 
Abrabanel, 413. 
Accommodation Theory, 46r. 
Accommodative sense, 390 


sqq. . 
Acta Pilati, 142 sq. 
Acts, apocryphal, of the Apos- 
tles, 145 sqq 
ae Paul and Thecla, 147 


uit ‘St. John, 148; 
—of St. Peter and St. Paul, 
148 sqq. 5 
—of St. Thomas, 148 sqq. 
Addai, the Teaching of,’ 150 
sqq. 
Agobard, 494. 
Albertus Magnus, 68, 443. 
Alcuin, 330, 442. 
Alexandrian, Canon, 32 sqq.; 
—Text, 256 ; 
—School, oo, 
Sqq-, 431, 486. 
Alexandrinus Codex, 245 sq., 
281. 
Alford, 253, 465. 
Alfric, 105, 342. 
Allegorical, Interpretation, 
417 SQq-, 423, 427 $qq5 
—Sense, 388 
Allegorism of Origen, 434 sqq. 
Allen, W., 337, 346. 
Ambrose (St)., 121. 
Analogy of Faith, 400 sq. 
Anagogical sense, 388 sq. 
Anglo-Saxon Versions, 


389, 417 


340 


sqq. 
Anselm (St.), 495. 
Antigonus of Socho, 408. 
Antilegomena, see Lusibius 
on the Canon. 
Antiochian, School, 435 sqq., 
449, 466, 489, 491; 
—Text, 256. 
Antoninus (St.), 71. 
Aphraates, 289, 293, 437. 
Apocalypse, of Elias, 133; 
—of Esdras, 123 sqq.; 
—of Paul, 158 sq.; 
—of Peter, gg. 
Apocrypha, 75 sq., 83 sqq., 
PLO ete, 


TRING aes XxX’, 


Apocrypha! books, of the Old 
Testament, 118 sqq.; 

—of the New Testament, 
137 Sqq. 

Apologists, early, 95 sqq., 428 
sqq. 
Apostolic, constitutions, 1203 

—Fathers, method of inter- 
pretation of the, 427 sqq. 

Aqiba, 199, 278, 285, 409, 449. 
Aquila, 197, 219, 284 sqq. 
Arabic, Gospel, 140; Lan- 
guage, 179; Version, 293. 
Aramaic, Language, 176, 179, 
184; Targum, 215, 218 
sq.; Writing, 186 sq. 
Aristeas, Letter of, 263 sqq. 
Armenian Version, 304. 
Arminian school, 116, 456.. 
Articles of the Church of 
England and Biblical In- 
errancy, 502. 
Assistentia Divina, 547. 
Assumption of Moses, 133. 
Assyrian, Language, 179; 
—Writing, 187 zote. 
Athanasius (St.), 50, 52, 65, 
121. 
Athenagoras, 46, 431, 483 sq. 
Augustine (St.), 61, 70, 73, 
ROduM oT. 262,) .etG:) ¢his 
method of interpretation, 
440 sqq.; his views on in- 
spiration, 492 sqq. 
Authenticity of the Vulgate, 
333. Sqq. 
Authorized Version, 350, 360 
sqq.; 

—rules given to authors of 
the, 361; silence which 
surrounds the prepara- 
tion of the, 362; publica- 
tion of the, 363: uneven 
value of the parts of the, 
364; literary and critical 
value of the, 365 sqq.; 
Protestants’objections to 
the, 367 sq.; reasons for 
revision of the, 369. 


Babelon, E., 397. 
Bacon, Roger, 443. 


601 


Bacon, Fr., 460, 500. 

Baer, S., 210. 

Baier, 499. 

Barnabas, Episcle of, g4 102 
480 sq. 

Baronius, 510. 

Basilides, 98. 

Basili\(St.); 52.125, 

92. 

Bauer, Bruno, 14, 463. 

Baumgarten, 500. 

Dai whee rises 1N2) Se, 


438, 490, 


463. 

Beardslee, 379. 

Bede, Venerable, 340, 442. 

Beelen, 467. 

Belgic, see Confessions. 

Bellarmin, 337, 506. 

Bengel, J. A., 253, 457, 499- 

Bensly, 296. 

Berzeny o.oo: 

Bernard (St.), 443. 

Bessarion, 282. 

Beza, 251; Codex of, 246 sq. 

Bible, Definition and various 
names, 113 Divisions, 13 
Sq.; 34,413; Unity, Beauty, 
and Influence of the, 15 
sqq.; Meaning of the 
threefold division of the 
Hebrew, 34 sq.; inspir- 
ing and elevating charac- 
ter of the, 518 sqq.: 
superhuman structure 
and contents of the, 522 
sqq.; organic unity of the, 
527 sqq.; inspiration of 
the (see Zzspzration). 

Biblical Interpretation, 
tory of, 427 sqq. 

Bickell, G., 213, 293, 466. 

Bishops’ Bible, 360, 367. 

Bisping, 466. 

Bohairic Version, 298 sqq. 

Bomberg, editions of, 209, 

Bonaventura (St.), 68, 443, 


his- 


495. 

Bonfrére, 453, 506. 

Books, number of sacred, 12; 
arrangement in Hebrew 
Bible, 13; order in Vul- 
gate and LX X,123sq.,41 


602 


Book of the Law, 37. 

Book of the Wars of Yahweh, 
182. 

Breen, A. E., 20, 

Briggs, Chas A., 21, 214, 418, 
425, 465, etc. 

Brown, Fr., 214. 

Burgon, J. W., 258 zote. 

Burkitt, 296. 

Buxtorfs, 211, 499. 


Czadmon, 340. 

Cajetan, 72, 106, 332, 446. 

Callixtus, 457. 

Calmet, A., 397, 453, 506. 

Calovius, 457, 499. 

Calvin, opposition of, to deu- 
tero-canonical books, 73 ; 
views on Biblical Inspira- 
tion, 497. 

Canus Melchior, 82. 

Canon, notion of the, 25; 
origin and growth of the 
Canon of the Old Testa- 
MENG ZO SO. 24) SUG. 
close of the Canon of the 
Old Testament, 29 sqq.; 
Old Testament Canon in 
the Christian Church, 
chaps. ii and iii; 

—of the New ‘Testament, 
chap. iv ; 
—of Muratori, 99. 

Canonical, books, 26, 70; etc.; 

—Proto- and Deutero-, 26, 
31, 41 Sqq., 75 Sq-, 93, 111; 
—Gospels, 94 sqq.; etc. 

Cappadocian Fathers, 438. 

Cappel, Ik, 211,457. 

Carafa, 282, 337. 

Carlstadt, 73, 110, 450, 497. 

Carthage, councils of, 60, 73, 
$24. 

Cassiodorus, 121, 329, 441. 

Catenz, 441 sq. 

Cavensis, Codex, 105. 

Cellérier, 384. 

Challoner, 349, 351 Sqq. 

Chauvin, 21, 379, 550. 

Chemnitz, 10. 

Cheyne, 465. 

Chrysostom (St.), 62, 

_ 436, 489 sqq., 492. 

Ciasca, 2092. 

Clair, 466, 

Claromontanus Codex, 246 sq. 

Clement, of Alexandria, 46, 
100, I2T, 264, 431, 486; 

—of Rome (St. ); 45, 93, 
427 Sq., 480 sq. 

Clement V, 444. 

Clement VIII, 338. 

Clementine, Homilies, TE 7° 

—Recognitions, 152 SQ., 430. 

Clericus, 457, 499. 

Cocceius, school of, 456. 

Codex, origin of the, 2293 

—Argenteus, 305. 


T21, 





INDEX. 


Coins of the Machabees, 186. 
Collections, primitive, of New 
‘Testament writings, 91 


sqq. 

Complutensian Polyglot, 251 
281. 

Confessions, Protestant, 
Faith, 83, 111 sq., 460. 

Coptic Versions, 298 sqq. 

Copyists, general methods of, 
72s 

Corinthians, Third Epistle to 
tiie; e15 4. 

Corluy, 58, 324, 467, 513. 

Cornely, 20, 308, 379, 467. 

Cornill, 213, 290. 

Corrections of the Scribes, 
197. 

Correctoria Biblica, 331. 

Council, of Carthage, see Ca7- 
thage ; 

—of Florence, on the Can- 
on, 71, 73; 78;* On iIn- 
spiration, 503 sq.; 

—of Hippo, 60, 121; 

—of Laodicea, 52, 73, 109; 

—of Nice, 60 ; 

—of Trent, on the Canon, 
77 8qq., 106 sqq.; on the 
Vulgate, 333 sqq.; on in- 
spiration, 505 sq.; 

—of the Vatican, on inspira- 
tion, 509 sqq. 

Coverdale, Miles, 359. 

Crelier, 466. 

Critical Editions of the Greek 
New Testament, 252 sqq. 

Criticism, notion of, 163 ; con- 
structive and destructive 
aspects of, 164; Higher, 
Lower, see the words. 

Cureton, 295. 


of 


Cursive, MSS., 248; writing, 


189, 231 Sqq. 

Cyprian (St.), 46, 121, 300, 
438, 486. 

Cyril (St.), of Alexandria, 


499 ; 
—of Jerusalem, 51, 262, 490. 


Damasus (St.), 60, 61, 240, 
315 Sq. 

Davidson, A. B., 465. 

—Samuel, 394 sq. 

De Broglie (Abbé), srr. 

Dehaut, 466. 

De Hummelauer, 467. 

De Rossi, Az., 212, 413. 

Delitzsch, F., 210, 464. 

Descartes, 460, 500. 

De Smedt, 513. 

Deutero-Canonical books, 26, 
33, 41 SQq., 93, IIT, 313, 
ere: 

De Wette, 463. 

D’ Hulst, 512 sq. 

Diatessaron of ‘Tatian, 292, 


297 Sq. 











Di Bartolo, S., 512. 
Didymus, 316, 490. 
Diocletian, edict of, 240. 
Diodorus of Tarsus, 436. 
Dionysius, of Alexandria, 46; 
—of Corinth, 97; 
—the Carthusian, 71. 

Dixon, 400, 508. 

Dorner, 503. 

Douay Version, 345 sqq. 3 
qualifications of its au- 
thors, 347; critical and 
literary value of the, 348 
sqq.; revisions of the, 35: 
sqq. 

Drach, 466. 

Driver, 213, 214, 465. 

Dupin, Ellies, 82, 506. 

Duval, R., 293, 297. 


Ebrard, 464 zoe. 

Edessa, school of, 437 sq. 

Egyptian Versions, see Coptic 
Versions. 

Eichhorn, 308, 462. 

Ellicott, 367, 369, 465. 

Elzevir Editions, 25r. 

Encyclical on inspiration, 
513 $qq-, 543 Sqq. 

English Versions, see Douay, 
Authorized, Rez 2sed. 

Enoch, Book of, 50; ap- 
parently quoted Inet, 
Jude, 133; character and 
contents, 134 Sq.; relation 
to New Testament writ- 
ings, 135 sq. 

Ephrem (St.), 289, 293, 437 Sq. 

Ephreemiticus MS., 246, 281. 

Epiphanius (St.), 52, 53, 292s 
490. 

Episcopius, 499. 

Epistles, apocryphal, 153 sqq. 


Erasmus, 72, 251, 332, 446, 
503, 508. 

Ernesti, 460. 

Esdras, 29, and the early 


scribes, 406 ; Third book 
of, 50, 78, 121 sqq.; Fourtn 
book* of 72050310, 150,176. 
123 sqq., 48o. 

Estienne, R., 209. 

Estius, 453, 505. 

Ethiopic Version, 303. 

Eucherius (St.), 328. 

Eugenius IV, 71, 73, 106. 

Eusebius of Czsarea, on the 
Canon, ror sq.; 

—and the Hexaplar Text, 


a7g/ ee 

Euthymius Zigabenus, 442, 
494. 

Ewald, H., soz. 

Exegesis, definition of bibli- 
cal, 383 ote. 

—of ‘the early reformers, 

448 sqq. 

External evidence, 172. 


: 


Faber, Fred. W., 365. 

Farrar, 502. 

Fathers of the Church, unan- 
imous consent of, 400; 
see also, Canon, [iter- 
pretation, Inspiration, 
etc. 

Feilmoser, 508. 

Field, 282. 

Fillion, 466 sq. 

Flacius, Illyricus, tro, 498. 

Formula Concordia, 455. 


Formulas, Protestant, of 
faith, 83, 111 sq., 460; see 
Confesstoits. 


Fouard, 467. 

Frankel, 290. 
Franzelin, 512. 
Frédégis, 494. 
Fuldensis Codex, 105. 
Fiirst, 415. 


Gallic Confession, 83. 

Geiger, A., 213, 415. ~ 

Gelasius (St.), 151. 

Gemara, see 7almud. 

Geneva Bible, 360 sq., 367. 

Gerhard, 499. 

Gerson, 445. 

Ginsburg, 210. 

Glossa ordinaria, 69, 442. 

Godet, 258. 

Gospel, preaching of the, S8 
sq. 

—of James, 139; 

—of Thomas, 140; 

—of Peter, 144; 

—of the Nazarenes or ac- 
cording to the Hebrews, 
144. 

Gospels, apocryphal, 138 sqq. 
Gothic Version, 283, 303, 305. 
Gould, 465. 

Grabe, 282. 

Gratiani Decretum, 495. 
Gratz, 213. 

Great Bible, 360. 

—synagogue, 30, 21r. 

Greek idiom of the New 
Testament, 221 sqq. 

—text of the New Testa- 
ment, 226 sqq} 

—copies of the New Testa- 
ment, soon and_e ex- 
tensively adulterated, 236 


sqq. 
Green, W. H., 465. 
Gregory, C. R., 308. 

Gregory (St.), the Great, 66, 
105, 329, 441 3 
—of Nazianzen, 

315, 438 5 
—of Nyssa, 438. 
Griesbach, 253. 
Grotius, H., 457, 499. 
Gutberlet, 466. 


51, 53, 


Hackett, 465. 








INDEX. 


Haggada, 407 sqq., 422. 

Hagiographa, 13, 35, 38, 189, 
219. 

Hahn, 253. 

Halacha, 407 sqq., 422. 

Hamelius, 505. 

Hampton Court Conference, 
360 sq. 

Hanneberg, 52, 506. 

Harkel, Thomas of, 208. 

Harman, H. M., 21. 

Harnack, 115. 

Hauptj be nae 

Havernick, 464. 

Hebraistsand Purists, 221 sq. 

Hebrew Bible, first printed, 
209 } 

—language, 83, 176 sqq.; 

—writing, 185 sqq.; 

—rolls, 188 sq.; 

—-orthography, 189 sq.; 

—=fEXt loss Lod, U2 T4,e 1G 
sqq., 268 sqq. 

Hellenistic dialect, 224 ; 

—school of interpretation, 
415 qq. 

Helvetic Confession, 83. 

Hengstenberg, 464. 

Hermas, 45, 480 sq. 

Hermeneutics, 20, 383, 384 
sq., etc. 

Hesychius, 208, 283. 

Hexapla, 197, 278 sqq., 288, 
300. 

Hexaplar Text, 279 sqq., 284, 
304. 

Higher Criticism, notion of 
the, 165; problems of 
the, 166 sq.; methods 
and results of the, 167 
sq. i 

Hilary (St.), of Poitiers, 54, 
103, 311, 439. 

Hillel, 408. 

Hippo, Council of, 60, 121. 

Hippolytus (St.), of Porto, 
486. 

—of Rome, 46. 

lahayabey, Wie 1Bhy sdey, 

Holden, 507 sq. 

Hollaz, 499. 

Holmes and Parsons, 282. 

Horne, T. H., 502, 522 sq. 

Hort, 302. 

Houbigant, 212. 

Hozley, 297. 

Hugo, a St. Caro, 68, 331, 


ree ee 
—of St. Victor, 67, 443, 495 
Sq., 502. 


Ignatius (St.), of Antioch, 


93, 480Sq. 
Inerrancy of Scripture, 503, 


507, 514 Sq. 


| Innocent I (St.), 61, 67, 104, 


121. 








603 


Inspiration, notion 
sqq.; difference 
Revelation, 472; state- 
ments of the Sacred 
Books regarding, 473 sqq.: 
according to Jewish 
Rabbis, 477 sqq.; in the 
Christian writers of the 
first two centuries, 48o 
sqq.; in the Fathers of 
the following centuries, 
485 sqq. 

—and the human element 
in Scripture, 485, 488, 
493; Views on, during 
the Middle Ages, 494 
sqq.; Views of Luther, 
and the other early Re- 
formers on, 496 $qq., 503 ; 
Orthodox Protestant 
theory of, 499; Rational- 
istic views of, sor sqq.; 
Mechanical theory of, 
5o1 sqq.; Natural theory 
of, 501 sqq ; Partial In- 
spiration, theory of, 502 ; 
Ulumination, theory of, 
502 sq.; in the Catholic 
Church since the Middle 
Ages, 503 sqq.; and in- 
errancy, 503 sqq., 507, 
G4 S5o5 Sd Cugeotes= 
tant proofs of, 517 sqq. ; 
Catholic proofs of, 537 
sqq-; Grounds common 
to Catholics and to Prot- 
estants in favor of, 537 
sqq.; Nature and extent 
of, 542 sqq.; Common 
teaching of the Church 
regarding the nature of, 
544 sqq.; Questions 
freely debated regarding, 
545) Sd. ca theory. of 
Verbal, 548 sqq. ; limited 
Illumination, theory of, 
550; the two tendencies 
regarding the extent of, 
550. Sqq. 

Internal Evidence, 168, 172. 

Interpretation, rules of, 3098 
sqq.; methods of, adopted 
by Our Lord, 421 sqq. 

Irenzus (St.), 45, 100, 262, 
264, 430, 484, 538. 

Isidore (St.), of Pelusium, 
436. \ 

Isidore (St.), of Seville, 105, 
329, 441. 

Itala, 307 sqq: 


of, 471 
from 


Jacob ben Chayim, 20g. 

Jahn, 166, 213, 397. 

James I and the Authorized 
Version, 360 sqq. 

Jansenius, C., 452. 

Jerome (St.), an opponent of 
the Deutero-Canonical 


604 


books, 56 sqq., 61, 73, 813 
the author of Latin Vul- 
gate, 314 sqq.; principal 
writings of, 316 sqq.; 
Reviser of the old Latin 
Version, 317 sq. ; begins 
new Version from the 
Hebrew, 318 sqq.; quali- 
fications as a translator, 
3198q.; his Hebrew text, 
321; method of render- 
ing, 321 sqq.; excellence 
of his translation, 325 
sqq.3; opposition met 
with by his work, 327 
sqq.; method of inter- 
pretation of, 439; on in- 
spiration, 491 sqq., 513, 
557: 

Jewish interpretation and the 
New ‘Testament Writ- 
ings, 420 sqq. 

John (St.), of Damascus, 65, 
442 5 

John, of Ragusa, 70 ; 

John, of Salisbury, 68, cos. 

Vosephus, 920, 33,5 120, | 531, 
264, 277, 330, 478 sq. 

Junilius Africanus, 441, 490. 

Justin (St.), 47 sq., 95 sqq., 
262, 264, 429, 433, 482, 538. 


Kabalists, 410 sqq., 418. 

Kant, 461 sq. 

Karaites, 410 sq. 

Kaulen, 20, 308, 379, 467. 

Keil, 47, 464. 

Kennicott, B., 212. 

Kenrick, 354, 367, 467 ; origin 
and value of his Bible, 
356 sqq. 

Kenyon, 293, 297. 

Kimchi, 413. 

King James’s Version, 
Authorized Version. 

Kirkpatrick, 465. 

Knabenubauer, 467. 

Kouvy Acadextos, 223 ; in the 
New Testament, 224 sqq.} 
in the Septuagint, 267 
sqq. 

Kostlin, 114. 

Kuenen, 502. 


see 


Lachmann, 253, 355. 

Ladd, 502, etc. 

Lagarde, 282. 

Lagrange, 500. 

Lamy, B., 82. 

Lanfranc, 331, 442. 

Langton, 68. 

Language, see Hebrew, 
Greek, etc. 

Laodicea, Council of, 52, roo. 

Laodiceans, Epistle to the, 
154 Sq. : 

Latin, old, version, 307 sqq., 








INDEX. 


3213 importance and 
principal characteristics 
of the, 312 sqq. ; 
—Fathers, method of in- 

terpretation of the, 438 
sqq. 

Latin Vulgate, see Vulgate. 

Law, the, or First Canon, 37. 

Le Hir,*467, 550. 

Lenormant, Fr., 397, 508, 510 
sqq. 

Leo (St.), the Great, 439. 

Leo XII1I and Inspiration, 
513 Sqq-, 543 Sqq. 

Leontius of ‘Byzantium, 65. 

Lessius, 505 sq. 

Lévesque, 473, 550. 

Levita, Elias, 413. 

Lewis, Mrs., 296. 

Lightfoot, Jno., 368, 457 ; 

—-J. B., 465. 

Lingard, 354 sq.” 

Literal sense, 385 sqq.; rules 
regarding the, 401 sqq. 
Loisy, 20, 49, 58, 467, 550, 554- 

London Polyglot, 252 zofe. 
Lower or Textual Criticism, 
name of, 165; starting 
point of the, 170; mate- 
rials of the, 171 ; Canons 
of, 173: 
Lucian, 279, 281 sqq., 305. 
Luther, opposes deutero- 
canonical books, 73 sqq., 
109 sqq.: his interpreta- 
tion of Scripture, 448 
sqq.; his connection with 
Rationalism, 459; his 
views on inspiration, 497. 
Maas, 467. 
Machabees, Thirdand Fourth 
books of the, 130 sqq. 
Maimonides, 413. 
Maldonatus, 453, 505. 
Manasses, Prayer of, 119 sq. 
Mauuscripts, as materials for 
Textual Criticism, 171 ; 
Hebrew, 188 sq.; Public 
and Private, 207 sq.; of 
the New Testament, 228 
sqq., 241 sqq.; of the old 
Latin Version, 312 ove; 
of the Latin Vulgate, 332 
note. 
Marcion, 08. 
Martin, Greg., 347. 
—J. P., 213, 258. 
Masius, 452. 
Massorah, 198 sqq., 209 ; 
--Greater and Lesser, 204, 
208. 
Massoretes, Textual Criticism 
of the, 202 sqq. 
Massoretic, points, 191, 205, 
208 3 
—text, 206 sqq., 210 sqq., 
22K; eos seks SUC. 
Matignon, 508. 





Matthew’s Bible, 359 sq. 
Mazella, 512. 

McEvilly, 467. 

Meignan, 397. 

Melanchthon, 459, 498. 
Mendelssohn, 414. 

Melito (St.), 48 sq., 289. 
Mesa, Inscription of, 185, 190. 
Mesrob (St.), 304. 
Metaphorical or Figurative 
Sense, 386. 

Methodius (St.), 47, 490. 
Michaelis, 457. 

Midrashim, 410. 

Mill, Jno., 252. 

Mishnah, 200, 409 sqq. 
Moabite stone, 185, 190, 526. 
Montfaucon, 234. 

More, Thos., 465. 

Morin, J., 211, 453. 

Moral sense of Holy Writ, 
388. 

Motais, 466. 

Munk,:-415. 

Miinster, S., 209, 332. 
Muratori, Canon of, 99 sq. 
Mystical sense, see Typical 





sense. 
' Mythical sense, notion of the, 
393; various kinds of 


the, 393 ote ; how far 
found in Holy Writ? 394 


sqq. 


Nary, atranslator of the New 
Testament, 353. 

Neander, 502. 

Nestorians, Canon of the, 64, 

Neteler, 466. 

Newman, Jon Teepe 
tion, 510 sqq.; F. W.. 502 

New Testament writings 
their origin, 88 sqq. ; ex 
egetical methods in, 42, 


sq. 
Nicephorvs, 66, 109. 
Nicholas I. 68. 

Nicholas de Lyra, 68, 444. 
Nickes, 467. 

Notker, 67. 

Novatian, 485. 


(Ecolampadius, 73. 

(Ecumenius, 442. 

Old Latin versions, 307 sqq 

321. 

Old cetera Name, 11; 
—Canon, 24 sqq. ; 
—-Text, 175 sqq.; 
—Deute ro- Canonical, 

books of, 26 zote. 

Olshausen, Justus, 213. 

Onkelos, Targum of, 219. 

Oracles of God, 471. 

Origen, on the Canon, 46, 49, 
54, 82, 102 ; on adultera- 
tions of the Greek Text 
of the New Testament 


238 sq. ; Hexapla of, 278 
sqq., 281 ; methods of in- 
terpretation of, 433 sqq.; 
on inspiration, 486 sqq. 
Originals of New Testament, 
publication of the, 226. 
Orthodox, Protestant school, 
If2. 
Orthography, Hebrew, 189. 
Osiander, 332. 


Palestinian Canon, 32 sqq., 42. 
Palimpsest MS., 246. 
Pantanus (St.), 431. 

Papyrus Rolls, 228 sq, 

Parchment MSS., 228 sqq. 

Patrizi, 467, 511. 

Paul (St.), and Seneca, 155 
sq., and St. Peter, 113 sq. 

Paul of Tella, 64 xote, 283, 
288. 

Paulus, 462. 

Pentateuch, the Samaritan, 
194; compared with the 
Hebrew Text, 216 sqq. 

Perowne, 465. 

Pesch, 512. 

Peshitto Version, 288 sqq. 

Peter, Gospel of, 144 ; Reve- 
lation of, 157 sq. 

Peter (St.), Chrysologus, 439. 

Peter Lombard, 495. 

Philippi, 464. 

Philo, 33, 264, 276, 417 sqq., 
431, 478, 484, 498. 

Philoxenus, 298. 

Photius, 442. 

Pietists, school of the, 456. 

Pighius, 504, 508. 

Pilati, Acta, 142 sq. 

Plummer, 465. 

Plumptre, 465. 

Points, Hebrew, rgr. 

Polycarp (St.), 480 sq., 538. 


Priscillian, ro4. 

Private pease right -f, 
450, 

Prosper Gt ), of Aquitaine, 
328, 4 

Priphets. (the), or the second 
Canon, 38. 

Protestants, their test of 
Canonicity, 73 sqq., 83 
sq., 109 sqq.; their con- 


fessions of faith, 83, 460, 
etc. ; their translations of 
Scripture, 338 sqq.; ex- 
egesis of the early, 448 
sqq.; early Protestants 
on inspiration, 496 sqq. ; 
their appeals to authority 
to prove biblical inspira- 
tion, 530 sqq. 

Psalter of Solomon, 128; 
Psalterium, (allicanum, 
318; Romanum, 318. 

Purists and Hebraists, 221 sq. 

Puritans, 360. 





INDEX. 


Rabanus, Maurus, 329, 442. 

Rabbinical schools of inter- 
pretation, 406 sqq. 

Rabbula, 292. 

Rashi, 412. 

Rationalism, rise of, 455; 
method of interpretation 
of, 458 sqq ; connection 
with Luther, 459; and 
inspiration, 500 sqq., 543- 

Recensions, 239. 

Regula fidei, 454. 

Reimarus, 500. 

Relative truths in Scripture, 
554 Sqq.- 

Renaissance, and its biblical 
scholars, 443 sqq. 

Reusch, 508. 

Reuschlin, 446. 

Reuss} E., 21,747; 74: 

Revelation of Peter, 157. 

Revised Version, 367 sqq. 

Rheims Testament, 346 sq. 

Rickaby, 467. 

Riehm, 464 zote. 

Right of private judgment, 
459; 459- 

Ritschl, rr4. 

Robert, U., 308. 

—Ch., 397. 

Robertson, F. W., 502. 

Rogers, 359. 

Rolls, 188 sq., 207, 228 sqq. 

Rooke, 528., 

Rufinus, 54 sq., 

Rupert, 67. 


104, 315. 


Sabatier, P., 307. 

Sahidic Version, 273, 298 sqq. 

Samaritan Canon, 29; Pen- 
tateuch, 194, 216 Sqq., 274. 

Sanday, 308; 465. 

Schaff, Ph., 375, 465. 

Schanz, 466, 472, 494, 557: 

Schleiermacher, 502. 

Schmid, 386, 512. 

Schmidt, 457: 

Scholastic interpretation 
Holy Writ, 441 sqq. 

Scholz, 466. 

Schools, Protestant, 111 sq., 
etc. 

Schottgen, 457. 

Scribes, their freedom in tran- 
scribing, 196 sq., 214 Sq. 


of 


their carelessness, 237 
_Sqq- 
Scrivener, F. H., 247, 258, 


298, 350, 362. 

Selden, J., 362. 

Semitic languages, 149 sqq. 

Semler, S., 85, 461, 500 sq. 

Senses of Holy Writ, see 
literal, figurative, 
moral, etc. 

Septuagint Version quoted in 
_the New Testament, 41 
sqqa.: historical imnor- 





605 


tance of the, 261 sq. ; in- 
spiration of the, 262; 
origin of the, 263 sqq.; 
character of the, 267 sqq5 
compared with the He- 
brew Bible, 270 sqq.; 
subsequent history of 
the, 275 sqq.; rejection 
by the Jews, 277 sqq.;3 
alterations in, 277 sqq.; 
Hexaplar Text of the, 279 
sqq., 284, 304: MSS. of 
the, 280 sqq.; printed 
text of the, 281 sqq. 
Sidon, inscriptions of, 186. 


Siloam, inscription of, 185, 
190. 

Simon, Richard, 38 sq., 211, 
506. 

Sinaiticus MS., 242 sqq., 254, 
258, 280. 


Sixtus of Sienna, 82. 

Sixtus V, 263, 282, 337. 

Smith, i. B., 465, 503: 

smyth, J. P.,.519 

Socinian School, 456, 460. 

Socinus, F., 459; L., 499. 

Spalding, M. J., 366. 

Spencer, 355. 

Stanley, 417, 465. 

Stephens, R., 250, 252, 332. 

Strabo, Walafrid, 67, 329, 449. 

Strauss, 463. 

Stuart, M., 465. 

Suarez, 505. 

Swete, H.B.; 123,282,465. 

Symmachus, Version of, 197, 
278, 226. 

Synagogue Rolls, 207 sq.: 
the Great, 30, 211. 

Syncretists, school of the, 456. 

Synoptic Gospels, 90, 355- 


Syriac language, 179; Ver- 
sions, 288 sqq. 

Syrian Text, 249, 256. 

Talmud, 30, 187, 191, 199} 


contents of the, 200. 

Talmudic school and its ex- 
egesis, 408 sqq. 

Talmudists and their textual 
criticism, 199 sqq- 

Tanquerey, 550. 

Targum, see Onkelos; Ara- 
mate. 

Tatian, 292 sq , 297. 

Taverner, 360. 

Tertullian, 30, 46, 
438, 486. 

Testament, rr sqq., etc. 

Text of the New Testament, 
226 sqq. 


IOI, 309, 


Textus Receptus, 215, 230, 
249 sq. 

Thalhofer, 466. 

Theodore of Mopsuestia, 436, 
4Q0. 


Theodoret, 62, 292, 436, 490- 


606 


Theodotion, 197, 278, 300; 
origin and leading fea- 
tures of his Version, 285 


sqq. 

Theophilus (St.), of An- 
tioch, 431. 

Theophylact, 442. 

Thomas Aquinas (St.), 443, 

., 495) 555: 

Tiberias, school of, 202, 205. 

Tischendorf, 242 sq., 253 sqq., 
282, 296, 365. 

Toletanus Codex, 105. 

Tollner, 500. 

Torah, 13. 

Tostat, 71, 446. 

Toy Ca tlm. 466 

Transmission of the original 
text of the Old Testa- 
ment, 193 sqq.; of the 
New Testament, 236 sqq. 

Tregelles, 253, 255. 

Trench, 369. 

Trent, see Councit. 

Trochon, 20, 308, 379. 

Tropological or moral sense, 


388. 

Trullan Council (or in Trul- 
lo), 65, 109. 

Tiibingen school, 113, 116, 
E52. 

Tyndale, Wm., 359. 

Typical sense, 387 sqq., 404, 
488. 


Ubaldi, 20. 


INDEX. 


Ulfilas, 305. 

Uncanonical books, 118 sqq. 

Uncials, 230 sq. 

Unity, organic, in the Bible, 
15, 527 sqq. 

Unpointed text of Old Testa- 
ment, 190 sq. 


Valentinus, 98. 

Van Steenkiste, 467. 

Variations in Hebrew manu- 
scripts, 193 sqq.; all im- 
portant in Greek text, go 
back to a very early 
period, 244 sq. 

Vaticanus Codex, 103, 241 Sq. 
254, 258, 273, 280. 

Verbal inspiration, theories 
of, 548 sqq. 

Vercellone, 338. 

Versions, see Septuagint, 
Vulgate, Armenian, 
Gothic, etc. 

Vigouroux, 20, 49, 308, 379, 

6 


467. 
Vincent of Lerins (St.), 328. 
Vitringa, 457. 

Vogué, L., 409. 

Volumen (Roll), 188. 

Vowel points, ror, 205, 208. 
Vulgate Version, 263, 307, 

3133; author of the, 314 

sqq. ; component parts of 

the, 320: critical and 

literary value of the, 321 

sqq.; divergences from 


Hebrew text, 321 sqq.; 
excellence of the, 325 sqq.; 
history of the, 327 sqq. ; 
authenticity of the, 333 
sqq.; official edition of 
the, 336 sqq. 


Walton, Brian, 252, 282. 
Ward, B., 467. 
Weiss, B., 464 xote. 
Wellhausen, Jul., 213. 
Westcott, 47, 74, 320, 465, 528. 
Westcott and Hort, 253, 255 
Sqq., 258, 293, 355+ 
Western text, 256. 
Wetstein, 457. 
Winer, G. B., 223. 
Wiseman, 307, 352, 354- 
Witham, a translator of the 
New Testament, 353. 
Wolf, 460, 500 sq. 
Wordsworth, 338, 465. , 
Writing, cursive, 189 ; uncial, 
230; Semitic, 191 sq. 
Wycliffe, 343 sqq. 


Xantes, Pagninus, 332, 446. 
Ximenes, 72, 209, 249, 281 
332. 


Vahweh, 182. 
Zeller, 114. 


Zunz, 415. 
Zwingli, 73, 450, 497: 


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